#like that one dog who got elected mayor

[too-many-blorbos]

My favorite animals are cats in positions of authority. Larry, Chief Mouser of Downing Street. Tama, Super Stationmaster of Kishi Station. Jorts and Jean, Customer Relations and unofficial union representatives. No, they're not sapient beings. Yes, I trust them all more than I've ever trusted a human leader. Yes, you WILL respect their authority, Mrs. Puttypaws the Second is an EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT and you will call her by her proper title or face my wrath. All hail our feline overlords.

[anexperimentallife]

The US far right has been working on their plan since AT LEAST the 1960s, when I was a kid listening to evangelicals talking about their plan to take over the US, and eventually the world. It's called "Christian Dominionism," and it's a fascist ideology which goes hand in glove with the GOP's plans.

Although it was not expressed so much to the world at large, this plan was OPENLY and FREQUENTLY discussed in far right circles. We kids, if we asked about it, were told that it was "God's Will." Ask any exvangelical about it, and they'll confirm. (Part of why I know so much about these dangerous and deluded folks is I WAS ONE OF THEM in my youth.)

And where has that plan gotten them? Well, the GOP recently released a hundreds of pages long document filled with their intentions if they win--including a nationwide abortion ban and a repeal of anti-discrimination laws, among other things.

Trump has already signaled his intent to create a military dictatorship if elected, by repealing laws against using the military against US citizens on US soil sp he can deploy them against dissenters, etc., and if the GOP pick up a few more congressional seats, he can do it. The GOP has already pushed to repeal presidential term limits, and Trump has indicated he'd like to be president for life.

So I'm amazed at all the people who think withholding their vote and letting the GOP win is going to somehow fix things and "push the Dems left."

You wanna know how to push US politics leftward? You're not gonna like it, because it takes actual work beyond stomping your foot and pouting and performatively showing everyone how "pure" you are by refusing to vote.

You have to start the same way the far right did (and again, they've been OPENLY talking about and pursuing this plan since I was a kid in the 1960s, AT LEAST)--they started by getting the most extreme right wingers they possibly could into any position they could. Positions like school board member, police chief, sherrif, city prosecuter, city council member, municipal judge, mayor, governor, hell, fucking dog catcher.

They encouraged far right extremists to become police officers and military personnel and work their way up the ranks to the point at which even the famously-racist FBI reported that major city police departments across the nation were pretty much taken over by members of white supremacist organizations.

In formerly reasonable churches, right wingers pushed for the hiring and training of more and more right wing pastors and mire right-wing theology.

More affluent right-wingers bought local papers and broadcasters, and as their political power grew, they changed laws to make it easier for a single entity to control the news--until now a mere handful of entities own nearly every major media outlet in the US.

And then they used every victory as leverage for the next one, and worked their way up. I mean, there's more, like the capitalization on economic and social anxiety and their inentional exacerbation of same so they could take advantage of it, but that's intertwined with the rest.

Essentially, they got this far because they put the work in.

If the US left is going to turn things around (and if it's not already too late), we've got to do the same, but it takes RESEARCHING and PROMOTING your local and state candidates, attending city council and school board meetings, and shit like that. It's actual fucking work to fix a country.

And then, after you've done all that--and after you've shown up to primaries to try to get any non-authoritarian leftist candidate you can nominated--then you vote for the leftest folks you're able to in the general. If there are no remotely leftist candidates, you vote for the centrist or right winger who will do the least damage.

Again, that's what the US far right has been doing for decades. Taking action. Wherever possible, taking new ground, but when they couldn't do that, ceding as little ground as possible. If they couldn't win, they made damn sure to do everything in their power to try to keep actual decent human beings from winning.

Actually doing the work doesn't have the emotional satisfaction of a grand gesture, but it definitely shows who is serious about making a difference and who would rather let everything burn than sully their imagined purity by voting for anything less than perfection.

Listen, Trump is not going to end the genocide in Gaza--in fact he increased tensions between the Israeli occupation and Palestine. And the GOP will never be persuaded. Hell, they want to let Russia take Ukraine and declare open season on asylum seekers.

The Dems suck. But the GOP is far, far worse, and will do MORE damage, and kill FAR MORE innocents. And if allowed to do so, will make it even harder to change the system than it is now. They've already PUBLICLY ADMITTED that their only chance of victory is keeping people from voting. Don't play into their hands.

Under current circumstances, you know what the Dems are going to do if Biden and a bunch of other Dems lose for not being pure enough? You think they'll be all like, "Oh, no! The left sure taught us a lesson by handing the country to the GOP! We'd better shift to the left!"

No. They're going to sip champagne in their multi-million dollar mansions and have meetings about how they need to move FURTHER RIGHT to win elections, because the left doesn't vote.

And if the US becomes a military dictatorship, most of the high ranking ones will simply take their fortunes and leave.

Yup, it'd sure teach ol' Joe a lesson to force him to spend the rest of his days sipping cocktails on the Riviera.

Look beyond the single battle and think strategically. That's how the GOP keeps gaining power. And refusing to act strategically is why the left is losing. We cannot take the hill we want right now. But if we lose the hills we've already taken, we risk losing the entire goddamn war.

So fucking vote. Work to get every leftist you can in any office you can. And if you can't do that, support the one who will do the least harm.

And if it takes voting for that shitbag Biden to keep Trump and the GOP out, hold your fucking nose and pull the goddamn lever.

[ladykailitha]

Well Met By Moonlight Part 5

Hi guys, I want to thank everyone who commented on the most recent Royal Pain and all the people that commented on the Midsummer's AU. I saw some that I hadn't seen comment in awhile and it made me so happy to see them back. I missed you all.

Here we have more of Wayne being badass. I know it feels like he's the main character right now, but trust me it will shift to the younger members soon enough.

And I got the chapter two to work finally, so I will be linking to the original from now on.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

***

Sun down on the following Saturday saw Wayne Munson in front of the whole town. Businesses closed. Only the hospital, fire and police station remained opened and they only had the most basic of crews.

Behind him on his left were Steve and Nancy and on his right were Billy and his bride, Heather. In front of him were the five boys that had attacked Steve.

Mayor Roberts stood between the two sets holding a microphone, he too was flanked. Sheriff Danny Powell stood on his right and Jim Hopper stood on his left.

“Welcome everyone. It is a sad day in Hawkins when we have to meet like this. I know it is hard on the lives and livelihoods of the people of this fair town. But a sickness has come to this town. The mindset of those not like being othered, seen as monsters and demons.”

The crowd murmured and hummed.

“But this town was not founded on those ideals. It was founded on peace and brotherhood between all its people. The humans, the vampires, and the werewolves. For nearly one hundred and fifty years this town has stood as testament to kinship that it has fostered. Which is why it is with much trepidation I have made the decision to let Sheriff Daniel Powell go as police chief of our fair town.”

The murmurs became more angry and sharp.

“He was told by several members of this community that these five boys before me were up to no good. That they would cause harm. Vampires and werewolves alike came to your sheriff with concerns and he waved them away. Regular people such as yourselves came to him that these boys meant serious harm to the supernatural members–nay to your neighbors and still he waved them away. Is that the type of man you want to protect and defend your town?”

Sheriff Powell looked down in shame as the crowd let out small cries of distress. Because no, that wasn’t what the town wanted. Most of them had thought him a good man. But this cast doubt on that very image. If he would turn a blind eye to a threat to a supernatural person, would he do the same to a black man or woman of ill repute, just because he didn’t care for their kind?

“Jim Hopper has graciously offered his assistance in stepping back into his old position of police chief. He will hold it until it is time to elect a new sheriff and with hope he will run then, as well.”

Hopper smiled and shook his head. “We’ll see,” he growled.

Mayor Roberts smiled back. “I will now turn the time over to Wayne Munson.”

Powell moved off to the one side and Mayor Roberts and Chief Hopper moved to the other. Wayne stepped up and an eerie silence descended on the crowd.

“It appears I’ve been too soft on this town,” Wayne growled, his voice reaching every corner of the town hall without the aid of the microphone. “Hunters think they can just come into my town, my territory and hunt people like a pack of feral dogs.”

The boys were forced to kneel in front of the crowd. Their hands were tied behind their backs and they bowed their heads.

“These are the children you raised,” Wayne told the crowd. He picked up something from the table next to him and held it up. “A foot trap made of silver. Considered inhumane to animals used to trap a nineteen year old boy, not much older than themselves. Yes, Steven Harrington is no average boy, but he is young nonetheless.”

He threw a few feet in front of the crowd, it clanging noisily to ground, the people in the front leaping back. He picked up the shattered pieces of the cross they had nailed Steve to.

“They bound him in silver to a wooden cross!” Wayne snarled. He threw the pieces after the trap.

The whole crowd gasped in horror as the pieces clattered to the floor. He picked up the final object off the table and held it above his head.

It was a metal bat. Not silver, but deadly all the same. The tip was rust red. Wayne threw to the ground as he had done the others. “They were beating him with this.”

“These are your children!” he growled. “Have I not been good to you? Have I not been kind?”

There were murmurs among the crowd.

“You have forgotten you are are under my protection!” Wayne roared. “Without me the pack and coven would have free rein of the town, like the roving gangs of old. You are fortunate that the current alpha and Dominus are generous. Do you not recall the terror that ruled under alpha Jack Sullivan before I tore his pack to pieces? Do you not remember the children that were be experimented on under the Dominus Dr Martin Brenner? Before Billy Hargrove came and cleaned out the lab and the coven that reeked of death?”

The crowd was stock still. Pin dropping would sound like thunder in that hall.

“Five years for Brenner,” he continued. “Ten years for Sullivan. Mere drops in the bucket of time for someone as old as myself, but to you? Far too long. That they were able to hide from me their ills for as long as they did, was an abomination. But they were summarily dispatched when I did find out.”

The crowd became restless.

“So I have passed judgment upon these youths,” Wayne said. “The two younger boys, Joshua Bentley and Chance Nelson will learn the ways of the pack and of the coven. Spending six weeks with each sect to unlearn the hate you taught them.”

The crowd let out a sigh of relief. That was good punishment for the two boys.

“Andy Duncan will be tried as a child,” he continued. “For criminal mischief and conspiracy to commit assault. It is likely that he will be forced to spend his time at a youth facility where he will remain until he turns eighteen. Then it will be up to the courts to move him to an adult facility or release him.”

The crowd took up the murmuring again as this was a little more harsh then the other boys, but still lenient.

Wayne grabbed Jason and Patrick by their collars and hauled them bodily to their feet.

“As for these two boys,” he snarled, “the mayor wants to try them as adults for use of an illegal trap,” the boys rolled their eyes, “assault with a deadly weapon,” Patrick gulped, but Jason was still smug, “conspiracy to commit murder,” Jason was mentally counting the number of years he would get and tilted his head like it was acceptable while Patrick turned white, “and for attempted murder.”

Jason looked shocked for the first time, he didn’t think they would go for the attempted murder charge, he had been told by his lawyer that it was unlikely because of how young they were. “And because of the laws of this town are unique, they will also be tried for supernatural hunting. A crime punishable by death.”

Patrick fainted and Jason threw up. Josh who had been sitting nearby, leapt out of the way of the vomit.

“But I am merciful,” Wayne continued, slowly lowering the unconscious Patrick to the ground. “They will spend time with me for six months and then I will make my own recommendations to the judge on the charges to proceed with.”

That was when Jason fainted, right into the pile of his own sick.

The crowd’s relief was palpable. Everyone was murmuring with agreement and elation.

“Let this be a lesson to you all,” Wayne concluded. “I am merciful, but test me one more time and you too will face my wrath.”

“Go!” he barked and everyone in the hall turned and fled.

All that was remaining was the mayor, Sheriff Powell and the six supernatural beings.

“Will you being staying in our town?” Wayne asked Powell.

Powell shook his head. “No. I got a job lined up in Chicago. I wasn’t meant for small town politics. I put my own prejudices ahead of the lives of the citizens of this town.”

“You still gonna be a copper?” Hopper asked.

Again he shook his head. “No, I can’t risk making the same mistake in a bigger town. I’m going to teach self-defense.”

They all nodded.

Mayor Roberts patted Powell’s arm. “You’re a good man who made a bad decision, don’t let this moment define the rest of your life.”

Powell nodded. He gave the mayor’s shoulder a squeeze and walked away.

“There goes a deeply troubled man,” Nancy said. “Do you think he’ll be all right?” She hugged her sides.

“Chicago is the best place for him to find that out,” Billy said. “It will either consume you or learn enough about yourself to survive.”

Steve put his arm around her and she leaned into his comfort.

“I hope the town can heal from this,” Mayor Roberts said. “There has been so much pain and hurt in this town in the last decade. I’m not sure how much more it can take.”

Wayne shook his head. “This town survived two world wars and a Great Depression, it will survive this.”

Mayor Roberts smiled sadly. “It is good to have such a long perspective, my friend.” He squeezed Wayne’s shoulder and slipped away, leaving behind the three vampires and three werewolves.

Hopper scratched the back of his head, sheepishly. It was strange look on the werewolf. “I’ve never been police chief and not the alpha before.”

“I prefer it,” Billy said with a low growl. “It means the werewolves are a little more even in terms of power in this town.”

Steve nodded. “I agree. It’s better this way. The sheriff needs to be supernatural in the way that the mayor must be human. A vampire sheriff would be weak during the day and even having a thrall as deputy would divide the power in a way that would make them weak. But a werewolf being sheriff ensures that everyone has a say.”

Wayne nodded back.

“Thank you for coming out, Steve,” he said, “I know this wasn’t easy for you, reliving your trauma.”

Steve scoffed. “If I didn’t, I would look weak and open myself and the pack to further attacks. Not just from the anti-supernatural quarter either. Other packs would think us easy prey. Vampires would attack us to feed on.” He glanced over at Billy and Heather and sneered. “I don’t have the favor of the current Dominus, not like our previous one did.”

Hopper looked down at his feet.

Billy smirked. “Come on, Heather,” he drawled. “Let’s go, babe.”

Heather simpered. “Anything you want.”

Billy licked his lips slowly. “Promise?”

She giggled and they walked out, with his arm around her waist as he whispered dirty things to each other.

Wayne watched them with a shake of his head. There were some disadvantages to having such a young Dominus. With a sigh he turned back to the werewolves.

“Thanks for doing this, Jim,” Wayne said, patting his back. “I know it’s not easy to come back this job, especially since you were hoping to spend more time with Jane.”

Hopper sighed. “I just hate that I have to step up in this way.”

Steve kissed the top of Nancy’s head. “Let Hop take you home, I still have some things to go over with Wayne.”

Nancy nodded and slipped out from under his arm.

Steve and Wayne watched them go.

“I was always surprised you made her alpha female,” Wayne said thoughtfully. “Not after what happened between you.”

Steve hummed. “I didn’t have a lot of options. It was either Joyce or her and I didn’t trust Joyce.”

Wayne nodded. “Who would have you picked if you had your choice?”

Steve smiled fondly. “Robin hands down, but right now she more valuable to me as a keeper then alpha female.”

“You really do have a good head on your shoulders, Steve,” he said, his smile crinkling his eyes. “Now, go reassure my boy that kiss on Nancy’s head was friendly, eh?”

Steve frowned. Wayne pointed to the back of the hall where a solitary figure waited.

Steve shook his head. “Has he always been the jealous type?”

Wayne laughed. “No, just when it comes to you.”

Steve hopped down from the stage and strolled over to Eddie. He wrapped his arms around the other boy and kissed him deeply.

“Oh,” Eddie said with a blush.

“Yeah,” Steve murmured. “Only you, okay?”

Eddie nodded.

“Come on, sunshine,” Steve said, his voice low and gravely, “I’m going to spend all night showing you how much I’m only yours.”

“Point me in the right direction, big boy.”

The two went off, not as giggly and overt as Billy and Heather, but just as heated, and definitely more in love.

Wayne looked up at the ceiling. “If there is a god, watch over those two, please. They are going to need it.”

***

Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19

Tag List: @spectrum-spectre @estrellami-1 @zerokrox-blog @artiststarme @swimmingbirdrunningrock @gregre369 @pyrohonk ​ @renaissan-vvitch @goodolefashionedloverboi @chaoticlovingdreamer @maya-custodios-dionach @messrs-weasley @val-from-lawrence @a-little-unsteddie @i-must-potato @danili666 @carlyv @rozzieroos @wonderland-girl143-blog @itsall-taken @justforthedead89 @emly03 @bookworm0690 @bookbinderbitch @littlewildflowerkitten @vecnuthy @redfreckledwolf @scheodingers-muppet @mira-jadeamethyst @just-a-tiny-void @potato-of-the-lord @goosesister

[beardedmrbean]

Children have been pushed out of schools, and hospitals have been left overcrowded after a surge of migrants into a remote city in Indiana, residents claim.

The population of Logansport has increased by 30 per cent since 2021 following a wave of migrants, Chris Martin, the city’s mayor,  told the Pharos-Tribune.

That would put the number of migrants arriving at more than 5,000, in a county that had a population of just 18,000 people in 2020, according to census data.

At the same time, the number of Haitian immigrant students in the Logansport schools has increased 15-fold, from 14 in 2021 to 207 this year, according to the New York Post.

It is understood that migrants have been drawn to the central Indiana city for jobs at a local meat-packing plant.

However, their rapid arrival has put the city’s health and education system under strain, with parents claiming they have been forced to pull their children from school to stop them from falling behind.

Nancy Baker, 44, a mother of two, said that her 16-year-old daughter, Cheyanne, dropped out of high school because teachers did not have enough time for the English-speaking pupils.

“There were way too many kids and it seemed to her that since they didn’t speak the language, or didn’t understand what was going on, they were getting more attention,” she told the New York Post.

“And so she and the other kids who grew up here who were having issues or struggling in certain things weren’t able to get the attention that they needed — the help they needed from the school.”

Barrie McClian, a retired teacher, said public schools and healthcare centres had been “impacted terribly” by the surge in arrivals.

“They have to figure out how to educate all these folks, without having anybody who knows how to translate for a lot of the languages. So those are big problems,” he told Mail Online.

Safety concerns

The influx of outsiders to the town has also raised concerns over safety, with Ms Baker claiming her daughter is scared to leave the house after being chased by a group of migrants.

“She was walking by herself and she was walking that way and two of them were going this way, she just kinda smiled at them as they walked by. They started yelling for her after they got past her. She turned around and she looked at them and they were like, ‘Come here! Come here!’” Ms Baker told the Post.

She added that her daughter had to run down the street to a coffee shop and was now “scared to go outside”.

Meanwhile, local health officials have raised concerns that the rapid influx of migrants is placing emergency rooms under strain.

“This surge has created a drastic climb in medical visits,” Serenity Alter, Cass County health department administrator, told The Post.

“It has been necessary for the hospital, health department and express clinics to boost translation services in order to ensure that medical needs are understood.”

The city is the latest flashpoint in the debate around immigration that is proving to be one of the most divisive issues in the lead up to the election.

It comes after Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance drew attention to Springfield, Ohio, where the former president claimed without evidence that illegal Haitian migrants were eating cats and dogs.

The Republican candidate has also highlighted problems with immigration in Aurora, Colorado, where he alleged armed members of the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua have overrun the town.

Logansport residents voiced their concerns about the city’s response to the impact of legal immigration during a meeting of the city council last Monday, with some calling on the Republican mayor to resign.

Attendees also claimed the city’s services were being impacted, with one stating that “rents are high” and that schools and the police department are overwhelmed, Fox 59 reported.

The mayor admitted there had been “some assimilation issues” from the arrival of people with “different culture beliefs” but called on politicians to “stop playing politics” with the town.

“We would rather you do your job and actually do something instead of talking about this,” Mr Martin told The Post.

[shituationist]

The Louisiana Democrats followed a right-tailing strategy straight to irrelevance. 8 years of a moderate conservative Democrat governor has given way to a GOP supermajority in the legislature and a Republican governor-elect. The Louisiana Democrats were more interested in policing their left flank - spending inordinate amounts of party resources to unseat the most progressive member of the Louisiana House, Rep. Landry from New Orleans, through support for a "blue dog" moderate conservative candidate - than they were in listening to their rank-and-file and defeating the GOP.

The result was predictable: 35% turnout statewide. The only candidates that got elected were the ones who enthused their base. Candidates who did not enthuse their base did not see anyone turn out for them. Rep. Landry, of course, defeated her challenger, who was endorsed by the state Democrats' central committee and Gov. John Bel Edwards.

This is all after losing Shreveport in 2021 - a majority Black city where a majority of voters are registered Democrats - to a white Republican mayoral candidate.

The Louisiana Dems spent decades tailing their right-wing opponents, hoping that by doing so they would be able to split off Republican voters from more extreme candidates. This worked in only two cases: when the GOP royally fucked up Louisiana's economy under 8 years of Piyush "Bobby" Jindal, and when the Republicans were divided in 2019 between supporters of Ralph Abraham and "Eddie" Rispone, who spent more time fighting each other than they did JBE. In both cases JBE won by a frog's hair, with turnouts around 50%.

While the "moderate conservative" leadership of the Democrats acted as a barrier to the worst inclinations of the now reactionary GOP, it did give them almost everything they wanted. Abortion was banned in the state in efforts that were led by the Democrats, including JBE. Criminal justice reform efforts were held back from what they could have been, keeping Louisiana's mass incarceration regime in place, and continuing the institutionalized cruelty against prison inmates. Pipelines were built through ecologically sensitive areas, companies continued to pollute the Mississippi river delta, nothing was done for those who live in Cancer Alley, and so on.

It is shameful that after a loss of this magnitude, with a voter turnout so low, that Democratic leadership in Louisiana has simply blamed voters for not turning out, rather than resigning in disgrace like they should have after this catastrophic electoral failure.

[rbck]

Polls, this biased medium of democracy that Tumblr has now added. You might be wondering what is so biased about polls, but it is more so a failure of the human mind. If you ask people to vote for the most Tumblr sexyman out of Minecraft youtubers, they will vote for their favourite mcyt sexyman, not which one is the most Tumblr sexyman after careful concideration. This is why Goodtimewhithscar is leading in nominations, while Joe Hills is the MOST Mcyt Tumblr sexyman, and you should vote for him.

Firstly, Tumblr sexymen are different from regular sexymen. A Tumblr sexyman is supposed to have an appearance that makes the uninitiated question in what world that is considered sexy. The answer is Tumblr BTW. This criteria means that Scar would, in my opinion, not qualify for looks. His appearance is too conventionally attractive for that. And the same goes for Cleo, despite being a zombie, her design is that of an attractive person who happens to have rotting skin and their ribs poking out. (For Cleo, I point you to the mcyt girlboss poll.) Joe Hills skin however, is a steve skin with a @ symbol at the chest. This is an incredibly plain and boring skin, there is nothing special or remarkable about it. Normal people would think this is a deficit to his sexyness, but that is what makes it perfect for a Tumblr sexyman! Add to this that his real life appearance screams weird uncle, and his lanky, unmuscular build, and there is the type of sexyness that only Tumblr apprechiates!

He is cryptid, very Tumblr sexyman. Because to tell the truth, if you told me that Joe Hills is a cryptid I would seriously hear you out instead of walking away. This is a man who has found the chaotic-lawful alignment. This is a man who built a replica of the ship that blocked the suez canal, and became giddy with genuine joy when it blocked the servers' sea travel. This is a man who decided to become dogcatcher during a mayoral election so he could burn the shopping district diamonds using the argument that dogs and diamonds are fundamentally the same. This is a man who built a bridge of red glass pains through the nether. This is Joe Hills, a creature whose mind we mere mortals can not begin to comprehend. Perfect, for a Tumblr sexyman.

One might argue that Scar also has a very Tumblr sexyman personality, but not to the point that Joe does. Joe has so much more of that Tumblr sexyman energy than Scar has, which you would know if you watched him. While Scar baffles the mind, he does not do so as often or to the same extent as Joe. Scar might lick diamonds, but Joe spent an entire season burning any he got his hands on for being tools of capitalism, extremely inconvenient in a diamond based economy like hermitcraft. When combined with my earlier arguments about appearance, you tell me who between them is the most Tumblr sexyman. 

Despite these qualities, Joe Hills is at a massive disadvantage during the poll. Joe Hills is undeniably the most Tumblr sexyman, at least out of the hermits, yet I have strong doubts about his ability to win. Unlike Scar, Joe has a very small viewerbase, he has the fewest subscribers out of any hermit. In a competition like this, popularity means a lot, and it is likely to swing the votes. I am not saying that Scar is not a Tumblr sexyman, but the fact remains that the reason for his massive lead in nominations is that he is so much more well known than smaller youtubers who might be more deserving of the title. Scar has the personality of a Tumblr sexyman but not the apperance, unlike Joe Hills, and most like several others who I don't know about, who have both. 

To summarise, Joe Hills is the most Tumblr sexyman, both in appearance and personality, but small youtubers so rarely win votes. To know that this is a poll where Joe is so qualified to win but he is still unlikely to because he lacks the clout of Scar, is somewhat depressing to me. So I am begging you, vote for the underdog, vote for Joe Hills.

And please remeber to be respectfull even if the person you are rooting for loses. Don't be a jerk.

Also, one of the two most amazing, hilarious, fantastic, brilliant and all around incredible sisters to ever exist in this or any other multiverse made a phenomonal, stupendous, riotus and wonderous power point for this, so please check it out.

[stephenjaymorrisblog]

How Will All This End?

Stephen Jay Morris

5/4/2024

©Scientific Morality

            Ever hear of the expression, “a self-fulfilling prophecy?” What does that mean?  You can convince yourself that something negative will happen in the future; you can convince yourself by repeating it repeatedly. Does it usually happen? Well, if you believe in a supernatural belief system, you can make something happen by chanting for it. If you believe in logic, there’s a 50-50 chance that something you predict may happen by coincidence.

            I know, I know—in the past I promised not to make any predictions. But America in the year 2024, is too juicy to pass up. Let’s just say, I’m only theorizing. Is that Kosher? OK! Let’s get to it.

            Many self-created prophets want that Nostradamus statue on their living room mantel, above the fireplace. But most predictions fall flat on their face. What is America’s number one concern as it is shoved down our collective throats? The presidential election in November 2024. Let’s see. Before the primaries, both political parties declared their candidates for president.

That didn’t happen in 1968. The Democrats had three candidates running for president. RFK, Eugene McCarthy, and Hubert Humphrey. So did the Republican Party. Nelson Rockefeller, Ronny Reagan, and Dick Nixon. (Can you believe that Dick Nixon beat Ronny Reagan?) So, this not like 1968 at all.

Second of all, will there be riots at the Democratic convention in Chicago this summer? Same as in 1968—yes. Will there be any trouble? Not really. In 1968, there were dozens of protest groups, from the Civil Rights movement to the Black Panther Party. Also, from SDS to the Yippies. The City government consisted of Blue Dog Democrats. What are Blue Dog Democrats? Right wing Democrats. Yeah, there was such a thing! After all, Rockefeller was a Liberal Republican. The Mayor, Richard J. Daley, was a Red Neck conservative, and he loved the police force and the military.  Now, in 2024, the Chicago city council are mostly left-of-center Democrats. Nothing will happen on the streets of Chicago because the Liberals will negotiate with the protest leaders. And make deals with them. Unless police provocateurs or Israeli agents start some shit. But I highly doubt it.

            So, what about the Republican Convention? In 1968, they had theirs in Miami Beach Florida. It’s funny; the Democrats had theirs at the same place in ‘72. There were riots there. Looking back, the so-called media always focused on the Democratic Convention. They loved it when the Left fought Liberals. People forget when the Republicans had a riot near their convention in ’68, Blacks rioted at Liberty City and the media blacked it out. (Pun intended.) In 1970, when White students at Kent State got shot, it was front page news. However, when Black students got shot by cops at Jackson State, that appeared on page 18 in the newspaper. So, when the GOP have their convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin this year, the media will downplay any demonstrations. If you still think the media is liberal, maybe you should go to your primary care provider and get tested for early-stage dementia.

            Now, between Biden and Trump, who will win? Biden is senile and Trump is demented. A lot can happen before November. Biden could drop out of the race for an elderly illness. Or he could die of natural causes. Keep your eye on Kamala Harris. She might be our first female president. If Biden does survive, he will lose the race.

            What about Trump? He could win, but he’d be very ineffectual sitting in a prison cell. Keep your eye on his vice-presidential choice. They might be our next president if Trump wins. It cracks me up how some of his sycophant followers portray him as some type of superhero. He must wear a girdle to keep that fat belly from falling on his dick! His arteries are so clogged with junk food, he might have a massive heart attack while sitting in the prison cafeteria. Plus, he has obvious signs of dementia; just listen to how he talks. I love how supporters of both candidates deny that their candidate has any illness. If Trump survives, he will barely win. The outcome may depend on which candidate dies first.

            Now, about this talk over losing our democracy. We never had it! For decades, the Chuds have claimed that we are a Constitutional Republic. The Liberals say we are a Liberal Democracy. Who’s right? Who cares?! This two-party system will always be a two-party system. If we were a true Democracy, we would have 17 political parties—just like Israel. But no, we have this fake rivalry between left and right. “Democrats are for the working man.” No, they’re not. “The Republicans are for individualism and Jesus.” Really?

So, as for this ultimatum of either we elect Biden or we get fascism versus if you vote for Trump, you’ll be raptured and float up to heaven…Fuck off, please! Nothing is going to happen in November. Even if Trump is elected, America will survive. If Biden wins, America will survive.

It’s time for a new constitution! It’s time for a one world anarchy!

Whatever!

[patheticbatman]

I accidentally deleted my December 2019 story, so here is the reupload! If you would like to see an illustrated version of the first part of The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett, please

One day, when he was naughty, Mr Bunnsy looked over the hedge into Farmer Fred’s field and it was full of green lettuces. Mr Bunnsy, however, was not full of lettuces. This did not seem fair.

- From Mr Bunnsy Has an Adventure

Rats! They chased the dogs and bit the cats, they- But there was more to it than that. As the amazing Maurice said, it was just a story about people and rats. And the difficult part of it was deciding who the people were, and who were the rats. But Malicia Grim said it was a story about stories.

It began - part of it began - on the mail coach that came over the mountains from the distant cities of the plain. This was the part of the journey that the driver didn’t like. The way wound through forests and around mountains on crumbling roads. There were deep shadows between the trees. Sometimes he thought things were following the coach, keeping just out of sight. It gave him the willies. And on this journey, the really big willie was that he could hear voices. He was sure of it. They were coming from behind him, from the top of the coach, and there was nothing there but the big oilcloth mail-sacks and the young man’s luggage. There was certainly nothing big enough for a person to hide inside. But occasionally he was sure he heard squeaky voices, whispering. There was only one passenger at this point. He was a fair-haired young man, sitting all by himself inside the rocking coach, reading a book. He was reading slowly, and aloud, moving his finger over the words. ‘Ubberwald,’ he read out.

“That’s ‘Uberwald’,” said a small, squeaky but very clear voice. “The dots make it a sort of long ‘ooo’ sound. But you’re doing well.”

“Ooooooberwald?”

“There’s such a thing as too much pronunciation, kid,” said another voice, which sounded half asleep. “But you know the best thing about Uberwald? It’s a long, long way from Sto Lat. It’s a long way from Pseudopolis. It’s a long way from anywhere where the Commander of the Watch says he’ll have us boiled alive if he ever sees us again. And it’s not very modern. Bad roads. Lots of mountains in the way. People don’t move about much up here. So news doesn’t travel very fast, see? And they don’t have policemen. Kid, we can make a fortune here!’

"Maurice?” said the boy, carefully.

“Yes, kid?”

“You don’t think what we’re doing is, you know… dishonest, do you?"

There was a pause before the voice said, "How do you mean, dishonest?”

“Well… we take their money, Maurice.” The coach rocked and bounced over a pot-hole. “All right,” said the unseen Maurice, “but what you’ve got to ask yourself is: who do we take the money from, actually?”

“Well… it’s generally the mayor or the city council or someone like that.”

“Right. And that means it's… what? I’ve told you this bit before.”

“Er…”

“It is gov-ern-ment money, kid,” said Maurice patiently. “Say it? Gov-ern-ment money.”

'Gov-ern-ment money,’ said the boy obediently. 'Right! And what do governments do with money?’

'Er, they…’

'They pay soldiers,’ said Maurice. 'They have wars. In fact, we’ve prob'ly stopped a lot of wars by taking the money and putting it where it can’t do any harm. They’d put up stachoos to us, if they thought about it.’

'Some of those towns looked pretty poor, Maurice,’ said the kid doubtfully.

'Hey, just the kind of places that don’t need wars, then.’

'Dangerous Beans says it's…’ The boy concentrated, and his lips moved before he said the word, as if he was trying out the pronunciation to himself, '… It’s un-eth-ickle.’

'That’s right, Maurice,’ said the squeaky voice. 'Dangerous Beans says we shouldn’t live by trickery.’

'Listen, Peaches, trickery is what humans are all about,’ said the voice of Maurice. 'They’re so keen on tricking one another all the time that they elect governments to do it for them. We give them value for money. They get a horrible plague of rats, they pay a rat piper, the rats all follow the kid out of town, hoppity-skip, end of plague, everyone’s happy that no-one’s widdling in the flour any more, the government gets re-elected by a grateful population, general celebration all round. Money well spent, in my opinion.’

'But there’s only a plague because we make them think there is,’ said the voice of Peaches.

'Well, my dear, another thing all those little governments spend their money on is rat-catchers, see? I don’t know why I bother with the lot of you, I really don’t.’

'Yes, but we-'

They realized that the coach had stopped. Outside, in the rain, there was the jingle of harness. Then the coach rocked a little, and there was the sound of running feet. A voice from out of the darkness said, 'Are there any wizards in there?’

The occupants looked at one another in puzzlement. 'No?’ said the kid, the kind of 'no’ that means 'why are you asking?’

'How about any witches?’ said the voice.

'No, no witches,’ said the kid.

'Right. Are there any heavily-armed trolls employed by the mail-coach company in there?’

'I doubt it,’ said Maurice. There was a moment’s pause, filled with the sound of the rain. 'OK, how about werewolves?’ said the voice eventually.

'What do they look like?’ asked the kid. 'Ah, well, they look perfectly normal right up to the point where they grow all, like, hair and teeth and giant paws and leap through the window at you,’ said the voice. The speaker sounded as though he was working through a list.

'We’ve all got hair and teeth,’ said the kid.

'So you are werewolves, then?’

'No.’

'Fine, fine.’ There was another pause filled with rain. 'OK, vampires,’ said the voice. 'It’s a wet night, you wouldn’t want to be flying in weather like this. Any vampires in there?’

'No!’ said the kid. 'We’re all perfectly harmless!’

'Oh boy,’ muttered Maurice, and crawled under the seat.

'That’s a relief,’ said the voice. 'You can’t be too careful these days. There’s a lot of funny people about.’ A crossbow was pushed through the window, and the voice said, 'Your money and your life. It’s a two-for-one deal, see?’

'The money’s in the case on the roof,’ said Maurice’s voice, from floor level. The highwayman looked around the dark interior of the coach.

'Who said that?’ he asked.

'Er, me,’ said the boy.

'I didn’t see your lips move, kid!’

'The money is on the roof. In the case. But if I was you I wouldn’t-’

'Hah, I just 'spect you wouldn’t,’ said the highwayman. His masked face disappeared from the window. The boy picked up the pipe that was lying on the seat beside him. It was the type still known as a penny whistle, although no-one could remember when they’d ever cost only a penny.

'Play “Robbery with Violence”, kid,’ said Maurice, quietly.

'Couldn’t we just give him money?’ said the voice of Peaches. It was a little voice.

'Money is for people to give us,’ said Maurice, sternly. Above them, they heard the scrape of the case on the roof of the coach as the highwayman dragged it down. The boy obediently picked up the flute and played a few notes. Now there were a number of sounds. There was a creak, a thud, a sort of scuffling noise and then a very short scream. When there was silence, Maurice climbed back onto the seat and poked his head out of the coach, into the dark and rainy night. 'Good man,’ he said. 'Sensible. The more you struggle, the harder they bite. Prob'ly not broken skin yet? Good. Come forward a bit so I can see you. But carefully, eh? We don’t want anyone to panic, do we?'

The highwayman reappeared in the light of the coach lamps. He was walking very slowly and carefully, his legs spread wide apart. And he was quietly whimpering. 'Ah, there you are,’ said Maurice, cheerfully. 'Went straight up your trouser legs, did they? Typical rat trick. Just nod, 'cos we don’t want to set 'em off. No tellin’ where it might end.’

The highwayman nodded very slowly. Then his eyes narrowed. 'You’re a cat?’ he mumbled. Then his eyes crossed and he gasped.

'Did I say talk?’ said Maurice. 'I don’t think I said talk, did I? Did the coachman run away or did you kill him?’ The man’s face went blank. 'Ah, quick learner, I like that in a highwayman,’ said Maurice. 'You can answer that question.’

'Ran away,’ said the highwayman hoarsely. Maurice stuck his head back inside the coach. 'Whadja think?’ he said. 'Coach, four horses, probably some valuables in the mail-bags… could be, oh, a thousand dollars or more. The kid could drive it. Worth a try?’

'That’s stealing, Maurice,’ said Peaches. She was sitting on the seat beside the kid. She was a rat. 'Not stealing as such,’ said Maurice. 'More… findin’. The driver’s run away, so it’s like… salvage. Hey, that’s right, we could turn it in for the reward. That’s much better. Legal, too. Shall we?’

'People would ask too many questions,’ said Peaches.

'If we just leave it, someone yawlp will steal it,’ wailed Maurice. 'Some thief will take it away! Much better if we take it, eh? We’re not thieves.’

'We will leave it, Maurice,’ said Peaches. 'In that case, let’s steal the highwayman’s horse,’ said Maurice, as if the night wouldn’t be properly finished unless they stole something. 'Stealing from a thief isn’t stealing, 'cos it cancels out.’

'We can’t stay here all night,’ said the kid to Peaches. 'He’s got a point.’

'That’s right!’ said the highwayman urgently. 'You can’t stay here all night!’

'That’s right,’ said a chorus of voices from his trousers, 'we can’t stay here all night!’ Maurice sighed, and stuck his head out of the window again. 'O-K,’ he said. 'This is what we’re going to do. You’re going to stand very still looking straight in front of you, and you won’t try any tricks because if you do I’ve only got to say the word-’

'Don’t say the word!’ said the highwayman even more urgently. 'Right,’ said Maurice, 'and we’ll take your horse as a punishment and you can have the coach because that’d be stealing and only thieves are allowed to steal. Fair enough?’

'Anything you say!’ said the highwayman, then he thought about this and added hurriedly, 'But please don’t say anything!’ He kept staring straight ahead. He saw the boy and the cat get out of the coach. He heard various sounds behind him as they took his horse. And he thought about his sword. All right, he was going to get a whole mail coach out of this deal, but there was such a thing as professional pride.

'All right,’ said the voice of the cat after a while. 'We’re all going to leave now, and you’ve got to promise not to move until we’re gone. Promise?’

'You have my word as a thief,’ said the highwayman, slowly lowering a hand to his sword. 'Right. We certainly trust you,’ said the voice of the cat. The man felt his trousers lighten as the rats poured out and scampered away, and he heard the jingle of harness. He waited a moment, then spun around, drew his sword and ran forward. Slightly forward, in any case. He wouldn’t have hit the ground so hard if someone hadn’t tied his bootlaces together.

They said he was amazing. The Amazing Maurice, they said. He’d never meant to be amazing. It had just happened. He’d realized something was odd that day, just after lunch, when he’d looked into a reflection in a puddle and thought that’s me. He’d never been aware of himself before. Of course, it was hard to remember how he’d thought before he became amazing. It seemed to him that his mind had been just a kind of soup.

And then there had been the rats, who lived under the rubbish heap in one corner of his territory. He’d realized there was something educated about the rats when he jumped on one and it’d said, 'Can we talk about this?’, and part of his amazing new brain had told him you couldn’t eat someone who could talk. At least, not until you’d heard what they’d got to say. The rat had been Peaches. She wasn’t like other rats. Nor were Dangerous Beans, Donut Enter, Darktan, Hamnpork, Big Savings, Toxie and all the rest of them.

But, then, Maurice wasn’t like other cats any more. Other cats were, suddenly, stupid. Maurice started to hang around with the rats, instead. They were someone to talk to. He got on fine so long as he remembered not to eat anyone they knew. The rats spent a lot of time worrying about why they were suddenly so clever. Maurice considered that this was a waste of time. Stuff happened. But the rats went on and on about whether it was something on the rubbish heap that they’d eaten, and even Maurice could see that wouldn’t explain how he’d got changed, because he’d never eaten rubbish. And he certainly wouldn’t eat any rubbish off that heap, seeing as where it came from…

He considered that the rats were, quite frankly, dumb. Clever, OK, but dumb. Maurice had lived on the streets forfour years and barely had any ears left and scars all over his nose, and he was smart. He swaggered so much when he walked that if he didn’t slow down he flipped himself over. When he fluffed out his tail people had to step around it. He reckoned you had to be smart to live for four years on these streets, especially with all the dog gangs and freelance furriers. One wrong move and you were lunch and a pair of gloves. Yes, you had to be smart.

You also had to be rich. This took some explaining to the rats, but Maurice had roamed the city and learned how things worked and money, he said, was the key to everything. And then one day he’d seen the stupid-looking kid playing the flute with his cap in front of him for pennies, he’d had an idea. An amazing idea. It just turned up, bang, all at once. Rats, flute, stupid-looking kid… And he’d said, 'Hey, stupid-looking kid! How would you like to make your fortu-nah, kid, I’m down here…'

Dawn was breaking when the highwayman’s horse came out of the forests, over a pass, and was reined to a halt in a convenient wood. The river valley stretched out below, with a town hunched up against the cliffs.

Maurice clambered out of the saddle-bag, and stretched. The stupid-looking kid helped the rats out of the other bag. They’d spent the journey hunched up on the money, although they were too polite to say that this was because no-one wanted to sleep in the same bag as a cat.

'What’s the name of the town, kid?’ Maurice said, sitting on a rock and looking down at the town. Behind them, the rats were counting the money again, stacking it in piles beside its leather bag. They did this every day. Even though he had no pockets, there was something about Maurice that made everyone want to check their change as often as possible.

’s called Bad Blintz,’ said the kid, referring to the guide-book. 'Ahem… should we be going there, if it’s bad?’ said Peaches, looking up from the counting. 'Hah, it’s not called Bad because it’s bad,’ said Maurice. 'That’s foreign language for bath, see?’

'So it’s really called Bath Blintz?’ said Donut Enter.

'Nah, nah, they call it Bath because…’ The Amazing Maurice hesitated, but only for a moment, 'because they got a bath, see? Very backward place, this. Not many baths around. But they’ve got one, and they’re very proud of it, so they want everyone to know. You prob'ly have to buy tickets even to have a look at it.’

'Is that true, Maurice?’ said Dangerous Beans. He asked the question quite politely, but it was clear that what he was really saying was 'I don’t think that is true, Maurice.'

Ah, yes… Dangerous Beans. Dangerous Beans was difficult to deal with. Really, he shouldn’t be. Back in the old days, Maurice thought, he wouldn’t even have eaten a rat so small and pale and generally ill-looking. He stared down at the little albino rat, with his snow-white fur and pinky eyes. Dangerous Beans did not stare back, because he was too short-sighted. Of course, being nearly blind was not too much of a drawback to a species that spent most of its time in the darkness and had a sense of smell that was, as far as Maurice could understand it, almost as good as sight and sound and speech all put together. For example, the rat always turned to face Maurice and looked directly at him when he spoke. It was uncanny. Maurice had known a blind cat that walked into doors a lot, but Dangerous Beans never did that. Dangerous Beans wasn’t the head rat. That was Hamnpork’s job. Hamnpork was big and fierce and a bit scabby, and he didn’t much like having a new-fangled brain and he certainly didn’t like talking to a cat. He’d been quite old when the rats had Changed, as they called it, and he said he was too old to change. He left talking-to-Maurice to Dangerous Beans, who’d been born just after the Change. And that little rat was clever. Incredibly clever. Too clever. Maurice needed all his tricks when he was dealing with Dangerous Beans. 'It’s amazing, the stuff I know,’ said Maurice, blinking slowly at him. 'Anyway, it’s a nice-looking town. Looks rich to me. Now, what we’ll do is-’

'Ahem…’ Maurice hated that sound. If there was a sound worse than Dangerous Beans asking one of his odd little questions, it was Peaches clearing her throat. It meant she was going to say something, very quietly, which was going to upset him.

'Yes?’ he said sharply.

'Do we really need to keep on doing this?’ she said.

'Well, of course, no,’ said Maurice. 'I don’t have to be here at all. I’m a cat, right? A cat with my talents? Hah! I could’ve got myself a really cushy job with a conjurer. Or a ventrilosqwist, maybe. There’s no end to the things I could be doing, right, 'cos people like cats. But, owing to being incredibly, you know, stupid and kind-hearted, I decided to help a bunch of rodents who are, and let’s be frank here, not exactly number one favourites with humans. Now some of you,’ and here he cast a yellow eye towards Dangerous Beans, 'have some idea of going to some island somewhere and starting up a kind of rat civilization of your very own, which I think is very, you know, admirable, but for that you need… what did I tell you that you need?’'Money, Maurice,’ said Dangerous Beans, 'but-’'Money. That’s right, 'cos what can you get with money?’ He looked around at the rats. 'Begins with a B,’ he prompted.

'Boats, Maurice, but-’

'And then there’s all the tools you’ll need, and food, of course-’

'There’s coconuts,’ said the stupid-looking kid, who was polishing his flute.

'Oh, did someone speak?’ said Maurice. 'What do you know about it, kid?’

'You get coconuts,’ said the kid. 'On desert islands. A man selling them told me.’

'How?’ said Maurice. He wasn’t too sure about coconuts.

'I don’t know. You just get them.’

'Oh, I suppose they just grow on trees, do they?’ said Maurice sarcastically. 'Sheesh, I just don’t know what you lot would do without… anyone?’ He glared at the group. 'Begins with an M.’

'You, Maurice,’ said Dangerous Beans. 'But, you see, what we think is, really-’

'Yes?’ said Maurice,

'Ahem,’ said Peaches. Maurice groaned. 'What Dangerous Beans means,’ said the female rat, 'is that all this stealing grains and cheese and gnawing holes in walls is, well…’ She looked up into Maurice’s yellow eyes. 'Is not morally right.’

'But it’s what rats do!’ said Maurice. 'But we feel we shouldn’t,’ said Dangerous Beans. 'We should be making our own way in the world!’

'Oh dear oh dear oh dear,’ said Maurice, shaking his head. 'Ho for the island, eh? The Kingdom of the Rats! Not that I’m laughing at your dream,’ he added hastily. 'Everyone needs their little dreams.’ Maurice truly that, too. If you knew what it was that people really, really wanted, you very nearly controlled them. Sometimes he wondered what the stupid-looking kid wanted. Nothing, as far as Maurice could tell, but to be allowed to play his flute and be left alone. But… well, it was like that thing with the coconuts. Every so often the kid would come out with something that suggested he’d been listening all along. People like that are hard to steer. But cats are good at steering people. A miaow here, a purr there, a little gentle pressure with a claw… and Maurice had never had to think about it before. Cats didn’t have to think. They just had to know what they wanted. Humans had to do the thinking. That’s what they were for. Maurice thought about the good old days before his brain had started whizzing like a firework. He’d turn up at the door of the University kitchens and look sweet, and then the cooks would try to work out what he wanted. It was amazing! They’d say things like 'Does oo want a bowl of milk, den? Does oo want a biscuit? Does oo want dese nice scraps, den?’ And all Maurice would have to do was wait patiently until they got to a sound he recognized, like 'turkey legs’ or 'minced lamb’.

But he was sure he’d never eaten anything magical. There was no such thing as enchanted chicken giblets, was there? It was the rats who’d eaten the magical stuff. The dump they called 'home’ and also called 'lunch’ was round the back of the University, and it was a university for wizards, after all. The old Maurice hadn’t paid much attention to people who weren’t holding bowls, but he was aware that the big men in pointy hats made strange things happen. And now he knew what happened to the stuff they used, too. It got tossed over the wall when they’d finished with it. All the old worn-out spell-books and the stubs of the dribbly candles and the remains of the green bubbly stuff in the cauldrons all ended up on the big dump, along with the tin cans and old boxes and the kitchen waste. Oh, the wizards had put up signs saying 'Dangerous’ and 'Toxic’, but the rats hadn’t been able to read in those days and they liked dribbly candle ends. Maurice had never eaten anything off the dump. A good motto in life, he’d reckoned, was: don’t eat anything that glows. But he’d become intelligent, too, at about the same time as the rats. It was a mystery.

Since then he’d done what cats always did. He steered people. Now some of the rats counted as people too, of course. But people were people, even if they had four legs and had called themselves names like Dangerous Beans, which is the kind of name you give yourself if you learn to read before you understand what all the words actually mean, and read the notices and the labels off the old rusty cans and give yourself names you like the sound of.

The trouble with thinking was that, once you started, you went on doing it. And as far as Maurice was concerned, the rats were thinking a good deal too much. Dangerous Beans was bad enough, but he was so busy thinking stupid thoughts about how rats could actually build their own country somewhere that Maurice could deal with him. It was Peaches who was the worst. Maurice’s usual trick of just talking fast until people got confused didn’t work on her at all.

'Ahem,’ she began again, 'we think that this should be the last time.’ Maurice stared. The other rats backed away slightly, but Peaches just stared back.

'I… Dangerous Beans, sir, believes that we should be thinking of settling down, sir,’ said Peaches. Maurice scowled. Hamnpork wouldn’t listen to Peaches, and she knew it, but Dangerous Beans was the nearest thing the rats had to a wizard and even big rats listened to him.

'This must be the very last time we do the silly “plague of rats” trick,’ said Peaches. 'And that’s final.’

'And what does Hamnpork think about this?’ said Maurice. He turned to the head rat, who had been watching them. It was always a good idea appealing to Hamnpork when Peaches was giving trouble, because he didn’t like her very much.

'What d'you mean, think?’ said Hamnpork.

'I… sir, I think we should stop doing this trick,’ said Peaches, dipping her head nervously.

'Oh, you think too, do you?’ said Hamnpork. 'Everyone’s thinking these days. I think there’s a good deal too much of this thinking, that’s what I think. We never thought about thinking when I was a lad. We’d never get anything done if we thought first.’ He gave Maurice a glare, too. Hamnpork didn’t like Maurice. He didn’t like most things that had happened since the Change. In fact Maurice wondered how long Hamnpork was going to last as leader. He didn’t like thinking. He belonged to the days when a rat leader just had to be big and stroppy. The world was moving far too fast for him now, which made him angry. He wasn’t so much leading now as being pushed.

'I thought we were going to get on a boat and find an island somewhere,’ said Hamnpork. 'Very ratty places, boats,’ he added, approvingly. Then he went on, with a slightly nervous and slightly annoyed look at Dangerous Beans, 'And people tell me that we need this money stuff because now we can do all this thinking we’ve got to be eff… efit…’

'Ethical, sir,’ said Dangerous Beans.

'Which sounds unratty to me. Not that my opinion counts for anything, it seems,’ said Hamnpork.

'We’ve got enough money, sir,’ said Peaches. 'We’ve already got a lot of money. We have got a lot of money, haven’t we, Maurice.’ It wasn’t a question; it was a kind of accusation.

'Well, when you say a lot-’ Maurice began.

'And in fact we’ve got more money than we thought,’ said Peaches, still in the same tone of voice. It was very polite, but it just kept going and it asked all the wrong questions. A wrong question for Maurice was one that he didn’t want anyone to ask. Peaches gave her little cough again. 'The reason I say we’ve got more money, Maurice, is that you said what were called “gold coins” were shiny like the moon and “silver coins” were shiny like the sun, and you’d keep all the silver coins. In fact, Maurice, that’s the wrong way around. It’s the silver coins that are shiny like the moon.'

Maurice thought a rude word in cat language, which has a great many of them. What was the point of education, he thought, if people went out afterwards and used it?

'So we think, sir,’ said Dangerous Beans to Hamnpork, 'that after this one last time we should share out the money and go our separate ways. Besides, it’s getting dangerous to keep repeating the same trick. We should stop before it’s too late. There’s a river here. We should be able to get to the sea.’

'An island with no humans or krllrrt cats would be a good place,’ said Hamnpork. Maurice didn’t let his smile fade, even though he knew what krllrrt meant.

'And we wouldn’t want to keep Maurice from his wonderful new job with the conjurer,’ said Peaches.

Maurice’s eyes narrowed. For a moment he came close to breaking his iron rule of not eating anyone that could talk. 'What about you, kid?’ he said, looking up at the stupid-looking kid.

'I don’t mind,’ said the kid.

'Don’t mind what?’ said Maurice.

'Don’t mind anything, really,’ said the kid. 'Just so long as no-one stops me playing.’

'But you’ve got to think of the future!’ said Maurice.

'I am,’ said the kid. 'I want to go on playing my music in the future. It doesn’t cost anything to play. But maybe the rats are right. We’ve had a couple of narrow squeaks, Maurice.'

Maurice gave the kid a sharp look to see if he was making a joke, but the kid had never done that kind of thing before. He gave up. Well, not exactly gave up. Maurice hadn’t got where he was by giving up on problems. He just put them to one side. After all, something always turned up.

'OK, fine,’ he said. 'We’ll do it one more time and split the money three ways. Fine. Not a problem. But if this is going to be the last time, let’s make it one to remember, eh?’ He grinned. The rats, being rats, were not keen on seeing a grinning cat, but they understood that a difficult decision had been made. They breathed tiny sighs of relief. 'Are you happy with that, kid?’ said Maurice.

'I can go on playing my flute afterwards?’ said the kid.

'Absolutely.’

'OK,’ said the kid. The money, shiny like the sun and shiny like the moon, was solemnly put back in its bag. The rats dragged the bag under the bushes and buried it. No-one could bury money like rats, and it didn’t pay to take too much into towns. Then there was the horse. It was a valuable horse, and Maurice was very, very sorry to turn it loose. But, as Peaches pointed out, it was a highwayman’s horse, with a very ornate saddle and bridle. Trying to sell it here could be dangerous. People would talk. It might attract the attention of the government. This was no time to have the Watch on their tails. Maurice walked to the edge of the rock and looked down at the town, which was waking up under the sunrise.

'Let’s make this the big one, then, eh?’ he said, as rats came back. 'I want to see maximum squeaking and making faces at people and widdling on stuff, OK?’

'We think that widdling on stuff is not really-’ Dangerous Beans began, but 'Ahem,’ said Peaches, and so Dangerous Beans went on: 'Oh, I suppose, if it’s the last time…’

'I’ve widdled on everything since I was out of the nest,’ said Hamnpork. 'Now they tell me it’s not right. If that’s what thinking means, I’m glad I don’t do any.’

'Let’s leave 'em amazed,’ said Maurice. 'Rats? They think they’ve seen rats in that town? After they’ve seen us, they’ll be making up stories!’

The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents Explanation

This was my favorite Terry Pratchett book for the longest time, because it was the first one I read. It gets so crazy and introspective and goofy, you get pulled in. I chose to do the first chapter because it will set the scene a bit.

When I first read this, I was on a plane to Maui, Hawai’i, with only three books. There was no in-flight movies because it was an inside-the-country flight and it was 2010. I read this book five times between then and the flight back, but I did not get tired of it. So I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I did if you do decide to check out the book once you’re a bit older. But please, also remember to check out Nation!

Mr. Bunnsy is a pretend book that influences the characters a lot in the book. It’s like a over-simplified Beatrix Potter book.

Logo: I copied it off of the original book cover. I had a different edition, but it didn’t look as interesting or colorful.

First picture, the Kid (his name is Keith) and Maurice are practicing reading. I tried to make Keith look like a kid from Oliver Twist, but then I forgot halfway through and now he has sneakers.

For the second picture, I spent WAY too much time trying to figure out the luggage. And I think it shows.

Third picture, I meant to make the highwayman look older, but I forgot because I was too busy trying to figure out where I could put rats to indicate that there were rats in his pants that wouldn’t look weird.

The rat in the hat is named Sardines and he is a mastermind. He can do anything, including tying shoelaces together in seconds with two little paws. For some reason I always imagine him with a Dick Van Dyke voice from Mary Poppins (he played Bert. I’m not sure you remember me telling you that story). It’s probably the hat. I nearly forgot the goblin for this one, so that’s why she looks a bit different.

Maurice looks really small in the sixth picture because drawing to scale is not my strongest point. But I think Keith turned out okay lol.

Maurice and Dangerous Beans have an interesting relationship later in the book, so I tried to convey Maurice’s weird belief in the little rat.

I really enjoyed drawing the slight reference to where the rats’ powers came from. It’s kind of ominous. The rats lived behind a wizard university, and in the books older wizards are just kind of dumb scholars who do experiments the way kids do - no scientific method, just slapping magic things together and seeing if they go kaboom!

The little map thing was my way of portraying a bit of a tense scene. I was going to draw everyone being uncomfortable, but I realized this was cuter and drew it instead.

Maurice loves bossing people around so I had to draw him doing that for the last picture. Probably shouldn’t have added in that shovel when it says that the rats buried the hole, but oh well - this is a comedy.

Anyways, I hope I managed to honor Pratchett’s vision with this. RIP, my guy. He is one of my biggest inspirations.

[thesweetnessofspring]

hiiii,

i just wanted to say that i recently-ish finished the first book from the chaos walking series, and it completely blew me away!!! it was SO gripping!! the amount of times I almost felt too stressed to read on is a little embarrassing honestly 🙉

but beyond it being incredibly fast-paced it is soooo thematically rich and emotionally harrowing at times (u were right I did cry - rip Manchee 😔). also, idk why but todd really gave me finnick vibes... (more on that when I figure out a way to explain myself, but i'm leaning heavily on the exploration on what it means to be a "Man" that is very prevalent in this book...)

anyway... i'm going on holiday for a few weeks and I've already got the second book locked and loaded!!! thanks for the recommendation 🫶, i'd love to hear some of your thoughts on the books :))))

First I want to apologize for how long it's taken me to get to this. 😭But yay I'm so glad you enjoyed the first book!!!! It's one of those edge-of-your seat reads that also says a lot and draws really interesting and layered characters and the next two in the series only get deeper with characterizations as you get to know the other characters (which you might already know as you might have read the other two by now).

I wouldn't have really connected Todd to Finnick before! I'm interested to hear your thoughts on it.

Part of the reason I delayed answering this is because I wanted to read the 2nd and 3rd books again before giving my thoughts, only my copies of those are buried in my parents' garage and they're renovating so things are a mess but I wanted to respond sooner than I'll get around to digging them out and rereading. It's been on my mind especially with the week we've had. Spoilers and long rambling below

So of TKONLG, what really stood out to me this past read was initiation into being a man by Mayor Prentiss, what Todd discovers. That they take a 13-year-old boy and make him kill a man trying to escape their hellhole of a town, or else pick someone they simply don't like, and make everyone else watch. How Ben and Cillian had to be so careful with their Noise to try and save Todd and set him loose with only a dog and a knife (and perhaps getting Manchee when Todd was 12 wasn't so accidental).

I've especially thought about it this week with the election. That boys are told to be a "man" by putting their pride in front of the lives of others, to the point they were the ones doing the killing. Psychologically, that's an intense ritual bonding them into a cult and letting it change them, especially as trying to leave puts them in the position to be the one who gets killed. And that's not to include the way they'd murdered all of the women in town before that. Prentisstown created scapegoat after scapegoat.

I think most of the boys must have been told that it was they kill or be killed to get them to comply. A few like Davy were probably happy to prove themselves a "man". Todd fought the most, and it was only Viola being threatened that gave him enough anger that he could have killed Aaron. Aaron, whom he never liked and didn't have family or anyone that would ask for justice for his death and wanted to be the sacrifice. Todd still fought it, even though in the end, Aaron had to be killed.

Would killing Aaron have made Todd a man? Did Todd become a "man" when he killed the Spackle before? Did Viola spare him, or are they both "guilty"? Is there an exception for the kind of ruthlessness in which Todd was pursued to complete this mission? I like that these are questions Ness poses instead of telling us. And the plot only gets juicier from here!

[deuterosapiens]

C'est continué! Το δράμα επιμένει!

Heartsong spoilers follow.

So, I neglected a kind of a big thing from my last post, which is that Kelly's wolf had been taken from him by Livingstone. Upsetting, highly upsetting, but we've reached a nice little point where the consequences of that are becoming apparent, so I'm going to lie and say I definitely wanted to hold off talking about that until something more came of that. Yepp. Totally didn't neglect to mention it due to time constraints, or due to other drama unfolding at the time.

I believe my lies.

Let's get caught up though. Bullet point style.

Robbie's back with the pack. He's having an absolutely wonderful time reintegrating with everyone and there've been no problems at all. It's like he never left!

I believe my lies.

Robbie's brain is thoroughly mush and everyone is hiding something fairly critical to his recovery. He obviously hurt (or killed) someone terribly and unfortunately for me this cast is a bit large so if someone obvious is missing, it's not quite apparent to me who. Give me a break: Rico, Chris and Tanner all have the exact same personality so they kind of blend in together when I'm not specifically reading their scenes.

Kelly is asexual. Cool, Ace representation rise! So... these two are mated..? How does that work? No judgment, he's explained himself more than he really needs to, but if Robbie's allowed to ask, then so am I.

Robbie's been thoroughly beaten down by the Human Crew (ugh, will anyone even get that reference?), repeatedly. Dude cannot hold his own in a fight, despite all efforts to inform us that he can hold himself in a fight. Methinks evidence of this is lacking.

Carter's wolf stalker apparently loves to watch him masturbate. TMI for you? TMI for me. TMI for all of us. Come on Klune, my man, my guy, you've got to make things weird, don't you? Love you, man, but you're weird sometimes.

You know that scene in The Simpsons Movie where Homer and Family return to Springfield and Moe claims to have been elected mayor after things "got a little crazy"? Yeah, that's how I feel having read that Carter has been elected Mayor of Green Creek.

So, as of now, I'm just shy of halfway through this book. Robbie's adorkable, but if I'm being honest, I think this particular story would work more effectively from Kelly's perspective. Like, he's fine, but I might have found the Pack's rescue of him more interesting from a viewpoint character who DOES know whatever it is that he did. I'm sure my opinion on this will change by the end, but compared to Ox and Gordo, he's a solid B plus. Again, not bad; he's interesting enough with the conflict of having to discover who he is compared to who he was; but I think the absence of father issues shows here.

Also, what's with Klune dropping weird-ass character descriptor knowledge out of nowhere? Ox is heavily tanned, Mark is bald, and Robbie's two years older than Kelly? That last one has truly shifted my perspective a third of an inch to the left, just a bit. Like, I cannot even begin to imagine, try as I might, Robbie being the older one; this feels wrooooong.

Shout-out to Kelly reading Cujo in front of a werewolf. Was Cycle of the Werewolf too on-the-nose (or perhaps Klune knew, like I do, that finding a copy of that book is next to impossible in the Wild without ordering it)? The book with the rabid dog and the weird affair and the child dying in a hot car feels feels like an odd thing to be casually reading in this situation. Like reading The Andromeda Strain in a hospital.

[fgfluidity]

nye

Summary: The attorney’s got a new hyperfixation, and Damien’s along for the ride.

Pairing: Damien/DA

Warnings: Damien is a chronic overthinker; alcohol; a bit of suggestiveness

i did a lot of research for this one and it’s late but yknow

i have a ko-fi here

@opprose @statictay @volbeast @mirrorslament @otterlyinluv

Damien impatiently taps his cane at the edge of the sidewalk, waiting for a pause in traffic. He has a call to make, and the wait in the late-December chill makes his leg ache something fierce— something that only worsens his mood.

Finally, thanks to the traffic cop, the torrent slows; with a short nod to the man— who isn’t looking, but it feels impolite not to acknowledge him— Damien crosses the street as quickly as his leg can carry him.

The last storefronts before the city gives way to more residential zoning are pulling down their Christmas decor, red and green replaced by gold and silver, bells and tinsel in place with noisemakers and bottles of sparkling juice.

At least some of those are actual alcohol, but Damien isn’t the sort of mayor to tell on his constituency. He’s not innocent of sending along a few bottles, himself.

All this to say, Christmas is gone, and now it’s New Year’s Eve.

He grimaces, though not entirely due to the twinge in his leg.

The New Year has always been a bit of a double-edged sword in Damien’s mind.

There’s a certain excitement in preparing for the calendar to shift, celebrating with loved ones as the world passes from December into January. He’s always loved the idea of new beginnings, fresh opportunities; God knows he always dreamt of it, with his family.

There’s privilege in wealth and status, but such loneliness, such severe detachment, that he never could help wishing for something different.

As a child, he and Celine would be ushered off to bed no later than 9 o’clock; any later would make for miserable children, as his father always said, and would disrupt their strict scheduling. No breaks for holidays in his father’s book— though it never stopped him or his sister from sneaking down to take canapés, desserts, and a single glass of champagne a time or two.

It was never as fun as Christmas, but at the very least they could be left to their own devices.

Adulthood is a similar story. He works hard to ensure the city is protected and working smoothly, that his people want for nothing. It takes work all year round, work he’s happy to do.

The last week of December, though, feels as lawless as the Old West.

Between Christmas and the New Year, even his motivation begins to lag, and it’s difficult to stay on task when so many relax in the holiday haze of food and merriment. When no one else is willing, his work suffers, and a Damien who can’t work…

He’s been called relentless and obsessed, but he can’t help the irritation that creeps in with each passing day of leisure. Like a particular sort of dog, if he can’t work, his environment suffers for it.

Perhaps it won’t be all bad, though. The invitation in his pocket, cream stock and elegant inking, promises a wonderful night with close friends— something he hasn’t had since his election.

“You’re coming to this one,” Celine had said to him that morning, fluffing up her fur wrap to protect from the chill in the doorway. “I’m not taking any arguments.”

“Huh,” Damien had replied— mostly because she hadn’t even phoned about her coming. “Coming to..? Celine, come in, it’s cool out.”

“I would, but I can’t stay. Socialite business.” She gave him a wry smile, and a creamy envelope to go along with it. No— two, one carefully tied with his with a satiny red ribbon. “We’re hosting for the New Year, and I’ve about had it with you dodging our invitations. You used to love parties, Damien, and at the very least you should be at this one.”

Damien huffed, though lightly, as he pulled at the ribbon. “I still love parties,” he protested. “Not all of us can take off at a moments’ notice to have a night out— and a hell of a morning afterward.”

“As if you ever had a hangover in your life,” Celine commented, and he chose to ignore it. “The office is closed for New Year’s Day, I know it is, and you’ll want to be there for this. I’ll be there, and Mark, of course. And…”

She trailed off as he flipped over the second invitation. Not his name, not a plus one, but the attorney.

He looked up sharply, only to be met with her smug smile, a note of triumph in her eyes. “They’re coming.”

“Of course,” she replied. “They need their invitation if they’re going to make it on time. If you’d be a dear?”

In lieu of wrinkling the invitation, he briefly tensed his jaw, thinking over what might be a legal way to get one over on his meddling sister. “Why couldn’t you? Since you’ve decided to be a messenger, and all.”

“Only for you, baby brother. Besides, I think they’ll take the invitation from you much more favorably.” She fluffed up her coat again. “Be sure not to be late. You could even come together, if that would help. Best clothes, Damien.”

His aching hand pulls him out of the reverie; it still rankles him so that he stops to work the blood back into his knuckles.

At least mistletoe won’t be involved at New Year’s, he assures himself. God knows his sister and brother in law would concoct some sort of scheme to get him to admit… something.

Something he refuses to acknowledge, at that. He pointedly puts it out of his mind the last few blocks to the attorney’s abode, striding purposefully down the sidewalk.

It’s the same as ever, with the climate’s lack of change with the seasons, but it’s still a comforting sight; small, yes, and a bit unassuming, but the inside is where the real treasure lies.

Like his friend— and the thought is immediately catalogued away into Things Not To Think About.

The closer Damien draws, though, he notes something a bit strange— namely, that one of their windows are open, and every now and then, something flies out to join the small pile amassing underneath it.

It’s decidedly unlike his friend to be so cavalier about their possessions, and the confusion and worry spurs him on faster. A burglar? A collections officer?

All— or, rather, most— of his worries seem unfounded as he draws up to the window. The attorney is indeed the one tossing out old papers and broken pieces of furniture, sleeves rolled up and a bit of sweat on their forehead.

“I don’t think it’s time for spring cleaning just yet,” he calls through the window. “What on Earth are you doing?”

They pop their head up, confused, but a bright smile crosses their face as they lay eyes on him. “It’s you,” they say, and then quickly, “I mean— hello! I’m doing a cleaning for the new year. You know it’s tradition in some places?”

Damien raises an eyebrow. “It’s tradition to throw things out of your bedroom window?”

“In some places,” they repeat excitedly. “Most places have a tradition of just cleaning, but throwing things out the window is a way to get rid of bad luck without darkening your doorway.”

They must have been on some sort of research kick to know that— he could even guess from the bright look in their eye, how their words tumble over each other.

It’s been that way since they met, long nights over books and his friend regaling him with all the new knowledge they’d managed to gather. He was never interested overmuch in the intricacies of animal social behaviors, but God if he didn’t soak in every word.

He’ll admit— it’s quite the endearing trait.

“Well, if you don’t mind something else darkening your doorway,” he jokes, “I have a letter for you. Special delivery.”

“A letter?” They set down some large box of things, tilting their head. “I can’t imagine why you’d have mail for me, but— sure, come in. It’s a walk from your house, you need a sit.”

Damien could protest, but they’re already hurrying away from the window and into the depths of their home. Besides, they’re more careful with his bad leg than he is— any opportunity to host or tend him is one they’ll jump at the chance to take.

Without them, he might be worse off than a cane.

He rounds the side of the house, but he’s only just begun to ascend the stairs when the front door swings open. The attorney is a touch less disheveled than they were in their bedroom, sweat dabbed away and sleeves rolled back down, but they’re still in comfortable housework clothes.

“Come on, get in from the chill,” they urge, sweeping him in with one arm. “I put water on, but I can’t say I have any of your particular beans. You’ll have to settle for tea.”

Damien heaves a long-suffering sigh as he sheds his jacket, allowing his friend to help him hang it. “I guess so. If I must, to avoid being a rude guest, I’ll drink your tea. You know…”

They raise an eyebrow, pausing mid-shuffle of a foot stool.

“If I’d known you were doing housework, I may not have worn my suit. I feel a touch overdressed.”

His friend snorts and pushes the foot stool the rest of the way to him. “I wouldn’t expect you to go back to our college days for me. Get your shoes off and come in for tea; I’m curious about that letter.”

He’d like to go back to the college days, really. Simple and easy, running around with his closest friend with little regard for propriety or image— he regularly aches with nostalgia, but especially being in their presence. More doors seemed open wide, then, more futures at hand where they weren’t quite so locked into place.

Now he’s bound by duty, and the use of a shoehorn. It’s not how he’d have liked his future to go, much less predicted, but…

In the midst of yanking his foot free of shining leather, he hears a small clatter, followed by a muffled, “Oh, nuts.” He can’t help but smile, lining his shoes up alongside theirs; regardless of other twists and turns, they still have each other.

“Are you—“

“I’m fine! Just a bit of a butterfingers today.” More clattering, boxes and bags and cups rifled through before the solid thump of a cabinet. “Which is why we’re both having a snack with our tea and news.”

“Both?” Damien courteously returns the foot stool to its previous location. Once it’s comfortable, he follows suit on the attorney’s squashy couch, easing into the cushions with a pleased sigh. “I haven’t been throwing things out all morning.”

“You always forget to eat something when you’re buzzing.” The attorney aims a pointed look at him over a tray loaded up with mugs and various foods. “You’re out of sorts and you probably only had your coffee, so you’re eating with me.”

Damien meets their gaze, doing his best impersonation of a clueless stone wall. “You think I’ve been buzzing?”

The attorney sits right next to him on the couch, not bothering with the polite distance they give him in public, and reach for their plate. “Your cane is smudged, which means you’ve been wringing it all day.”

“Not necessarily.” He takes a sip of tea. Black, tannin-rich— just how he prefers. “Perhaps I’ve just been too busy to clean up.”

He gets a nudge at that— the warm, solid line of their thigh pressing harder into his. “I’d believe that if you didn’t match your tie to your scarf— which is mine, by the way.”

“I won it fair and square, if you recall.” Certainly hard-won, at that— he had to have used up every last scrap of luck to beat them at poker. “You know I like to keep up appearances.”

“Don’t you just.” They take a long sip from their mug in lieu of explaining themself, though the tired, far-off look in their eye gives him an inkling, along with a smidgen of guilt. “But that would include polishing your cane. You did that on the way over, after you put effort in.

“Which means,” they continue, a note of triumph coming into their voice, “that something frazzled you enough to still be on your mind, something related to the news you bring. The only person who can get you that out of shape is Celine. What’d she say?”

Damien blinks at them, then huffs a laugh. “Quite sharp. Are you sure you don’t want to swap careers to be on the police force? They’d kill for a detective like you.”

Their nose wrinkles a little over their mug. “No, thank you. Besides, the same skill set works wonders in the courtroom— and I could read you like an open book, we’ve known each other so long.”

Hopefully not too open. Damien clears his throat and digs in his pockets for the invitation. “Ah— here. She asked I hand-deliver it, though she’s perfectly capable of doing that, herself.”

“Sure, but I prefer a visit from you. You’re far less intimidating.” Paying little heed to his offense, played up as it may be, they open up the envelope. Their bright eyes scan the creamy card stock, then again.

Damien tilts his head to see their face better, but it’s irritatingly blank. Damn their poker face, for all the good it’s done them. “Is something the matter?”

“Hm? Oh— no, there’s nothing wrong, sorry.” They laugh a little, sliding the card back into the envelope. “Just— personalized, and you know how he is.”

God, does he ever. The ripped off section with detailed instructions on how to woo the attorney is presently in his trash bin under coffee grounds. “And what did he say?”

“Typical Mark teasing.” Again, that unreadable expression as they shrug, and he burns to know what they wouldn’t share with him.

As they reach for the tray, grabbing up a handful of plump grapes, he asks, “Are you coming?”

“Of course I am.” They give him a little smile. “We might be busier these days, but it’s a holiday, and I haven’t seen everyone in some time, besides.”

The knot in his chest loosens slightly, and he breathes a sigh of relief. “Good. We may all be friends, but it’s nice to have you along.”

“Would you miss me, otherwise?”

Their eyes shine even brighter, and he’s thankful a blush can’t show on his skin.

“Eat your grapes. Aren’t they good luck?”

“Yes. Which is why you should eat them if you want to keep that scarf tonight.”

—

If it weren’t for his sister and brother-in-law’s machinations, he’d have been happy to stick around all day long, basking in company that demands so little; alas, after their lunch, he excuses himself.

“Are you sure you don’t want to join me in another tradition?”

It isn’t fair to play that sort of card when he’s already thin on resolve. “What kind of tradition, exactly?”

They stop stretching their left arm over their chest, swapping over to their right. “I was thinking of going for a spin around the house, actually, but I also have some more things to toss out if you’d find it easier.”

They’re grinning, eyes shining, but he still can’t tell if this one is a joke or not. “Unfortunately, I’ll have to pass up both. My leg, for one, and for the other… well, they aren’t my things. Maybe that’s bad luck.”

“Very possible,” they muse, nodding. “You’d probably want as much strength as possible, anyway, party animal.”

“You’re one to talk, little monster.” It’s too fond to be much of a comeback, but it’s worth it for how they smile afterward. “Shall I meet you there?”

They pause in stretching, mouth open as if to say something, but they must think better of it; instead, they bend a bit to help stretch out their feet. “Sure thing.”

So… it stays on his mind a while.

Could they have wanted to join him? It’d save on a drive, yes, but surely they know the whispers that would follow.

Not that he’d give a damn, really. He’s been doing this for too long to care quite that much, and his reputation could probably do with a scandal— however false— to keep things interesting.

Celine’s words, not his, though he’s begun to see the appeal.

He should have said something. Should have offered, at the very least, to be kind.

What if that wasn’t their intention, though? What if it was a different train of thought entirely, their brilliant mind going a mile a minute, and any such offer would make things tense?

He looks down to the mild ache in his knuckles; just as earlier that morning, they’re white with tension, the gleaming wood and metal of his cane once more marred by oily fingerprints.

Damn it. With a sigh, he whips the pocket square out of his jacket to polish the worst of the smudges away. It might be a more intimate party, but he’d still like to keep tidy.

A few moments later, the black wood is about as good as it’s going to get without proper polish. Hopefully no one will look too terribly closely.

(No one ever does, but he worries.)

The handle hooked over a forearm, he goes about refolding the pocket square; only a few folds in, however, the back of his neck prickles. It’s the odd feeling of being observed, and not passively, either.

There’s no attorney when he looks up, but there is his sister, dark eyes sharp and keen as flint. Her intense stare would be bad enough for him, but after a moment, the corner of her moth lifts, and her eyes turn to the foyer.

“Oh, our esteemed guest, welcome! It’s been some time, you know,” Benjamin says, overdone accent and all muffled by the distance and din. “We’ve missed you at the tables, Mx.—“

Oh.

Before whatever Celine has in mind for him comes to pass, he needs a good drink.

A strong one.

—

Several strong ones later, he’s feeling light as a feather.

At the very least, Damien’s in good company; nearly everyone else in the ballroom is in a similar state, leaning into arms or lounges or walls. They’re merry, though, laughter and snippets of song joining in with the blaring radio at the far wall.

Even Mark and Celine look a bit bright-eyed, which is a sight. He hasn’t seen that sort of inebriation with them in years.

He can’t say the same for the attorney, for better or for worse.

A notorious lightweight, despite their absolute best efforts, he could estimate they’re as sloppy as he feels; they slump into his side, eyes glassy, though their slur can’t stop their mile-a-minute chatter.

“There’s so many, Day,” they enthuse, one hand clenching his suit jacket tight. “Everyone everywhere has a tradition, how amazing is that? Everyone does something different and new! There are ones even I don’t know!”

“I don’t know about that one, little monster,” he laughs. “You really seem to have done your research.”

“Research… that’s it!” They look up at him, as if they’ve found the discovery of the century. “Damien… what if I researched it? And wrote a book?”

If he’s honest, he’s surprised they haven’t by now, in some discipline. “You could, but it’d be a lot of work. Might take you years.”

“I have years,” they insist, “or, I could. If I wasn’t an attorney.”

“You’d give that up?” He frowns. “I thought you always wanted to be one.”

They shrug. “It comes and goes. I wouldn’t be upset, really. I could do whatever I want, then— and I’d still have you.”

They would. They’re always going to, no matter what, but if politics wasn’t in the way…

He’s pretty sick of it.

They’re here and soft and lovely, and everyone’s counting down, and he may not have done the research but he’s damn certain of one important tradition.

He pulls them in and kisses them.

It’s a little off-center, but it’s wonderful. They’re soft, warm, tasting like the dessert course and champagne, bubbles of sugar and alcohol coursing through him, enough to nearly make him take flight.

They… aren’t moving, though. Just in place, not pulling away but not leaning in.

Panicked, he pulls back, but the look of awe on their face halts any words before he can begin to say them.

“O-oh,” they say, so soft, and then they giggle. Not a laugh, but a giggle. “Um— yes, that… that could go in the book. And…”

“And..?” His breath catches, heart pounding.

“Well.” They smile a little, shy but under hooded eyes, and lean in a little towards him. “There’s another tradition. You’re supposed to wear red for luck.”

He eyes them. Not a drop to be seen. “Aren’t you worried about bad luck?”

Their sly grin grows. “No. You can check for yourself, if you want?”

Thanks to the alcohol, it takes him a good minute, but by then…

Well, they aren’t too worried about clothes, anymore.

[tanoraqui]

Other things I like to think happen in the wake of Leon Stamatis’s final death:

The will Uriah Connolly found wasn’t the first anyone had seen of Leon’s will, because of course Leon had updated copies backed up with his lawyer, bank, and a public notary. Instead, it was a draft of his next update, which he hadn’t yet finalized enough to officialize—not fully legal, but clearly intended. To Uriah’s mild embarrassment, it included 6 months of rent and etc. utility payments to himself and other relevant parties on behalf of Michael Tate and/or anyone else who might be sleeping on Leon’s couch at the time of Leon’s death.

Ben Affleck produced a eulogeic biopic of his friend Matt Damon. He considered starring in it as Matt Damon, but eventually decided (on advice of his new friend and formal jail neighbor Nica Stamatis) to direct instead. To Nica’s discomfort, he wrote in Nica in as the misremembered role Matt Damon initially gave her. He offered to let her play her own part; she declined. She asked Nicole if she wanted it and Nicole thought about it seriously but also declined—she likes being a newswoman.

“Matt Damon: The Story of Matt Damon by Matt Damon’s Friend Ben Affleck” may not have been a perfect movie, but it was made with so much obvious love that it won several major awards and launched Ben Affleck back into a real directing career.

Michael invited Autumn and Ada to the premiere. Carrington Vanderbilt, the man Matt Damon died trying to save, had minimal screen time, but in what he had, he was presented as a regretful and loving failure of a husband and father who is robbed of his chance to apologize just as Matt Damon is robbed of his chance to continue being Matt Damon. (Ben Affleck had consulted on the script with Nica, who'd forwarded him to Louisa.) On balance, it was…

Yeah, it was even weirder and more awkward than their first Wonderland date. But in a good way.

Michael and Autumn resumed dating shortly thereafter. He moved in with her and Ada in Providence and they got married in Wonderland. Tyrell was their wedding planner, of course. Louisa broke her own rule to photograph her best friend’s wedding—they were going to hire someone else; they did hire someone else, and Louisa kept telling the other person they were doing it wrong, and taking over. Phil smuggled himself back into Boston to sit on Autumn’s side of the aisle.

There are exactly 2 photos of Phil at the wedding: 1 from the other photographer of him throwing a delightedly laughing Ada (ringbearer ofc) in the air, and 1 clumsy one from Louisa of Phil tripping on a stray streamers and faceplanting in one last pile of cheese. There’s a less clumsy, though still not professional, photo taken by Gemma of Louisa in her Best Woman dress bent over with laughter as she wrestled her camera into place for that shot. Wendell has it framed.

Louisa and Wendell neither get married nor have children, though they do get a beagle. Bagel the beagle helps Louisa sniff out clues (usually food) and likes to harmonize with Wendell. Wendell actually makes this work, musically. He briefly blows up on TikTok for being “the guy who sings with his dog.”

Meanwhile, the Redsistance is still hard at work helping people get by, a task that has alas grown no easier with Emily officially resigned and living in New York. However, typically, it’s MD:TSoMDbMDFBA that really kicks off the downfall of the Bespin regime and everyone associated with it. She basically killed Matt Damon, and that other guy, the loser dad! Legion remains present in everyone’s homes, and its shops are still everywhere, but the people boot out Mayor and elect something like a moderate Democrat, who promptly drops 95% of the exploitative fare and jail things, and un-exiles the Wonderland community…though doesn’t do much to re-provide housing for them…(to be fair, other people do live there, now)…

That’s manageable, because also meanwhile, Dimitri and Mallory have befriended the secret rodent civilization living in a parallel city below Boston (as secret rodent civilizations live beneath most major cities in the world). They—the rats, mostly, but also mice, squirrels, etc—have become allies and business partners with the Wonderland community, much like at the end of The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents (Pratchett).

Btw at some point Dimitri and Nica went on a road trip down the coast, maybe to visit relatives in Virginia. Along the way, they met the Jersey Devil (literally some sort of supernatural creature), and Mothman (a now-old man who played a prank with a good costume in the 60s and felt obliged to keep it up. Dimitri puts him in touch with Darby Cooper and they become happy penpals for the last years of Darby’s life.)

Isaiah and Melissa become a crack political activism team. They don’t always agree on exactly what the best path forward is, but they agree on most of their goals and it sometimes seems like they can almost read each others minds.

Mark Wahlberg starts vengefully stalking the guy who plays Matt Damon in MD:TSoMDbMDFBA, and ends up with a restraining order from Boston entirely. Fuck Mark Wahlberg.

Nica works in the Redsistance but she also goes back to work in Singer’s Sewing Machine and Vacuum Repair. Yeah, she’s rehired partly because of the amazing advertising of MD:TSoMDbMDFBA, but also because she was the best damn sewing machine repairer they ever had. She starts part-time—she’s also busy with the Redsistance; an unnoticeable, forgettable face is a real asset—but it’s not long before she’s full-time, and not long after that it becomes Singer&Stamatis Sewing Machine & Vacuum Repair. She keeps the name when old Mr. Singer finally retires, though she branches out to repairing more odds and ends of common household mechanisms.

It’s an innocuous little store. In the back room, while the proprietress repairs, she also hosts visiting revolutionaries, politicians, and the press, Hollywood directors and local artists, and one famously missing man who always comes home between adventures—who sometimes tugs her out, laughing, onto the road with him. She also welcomes anyone in the neighborhood who needs a good listening ear.

At some point, someone dies. Probably suddenly, maybe violently (they ARE all making trouble for powerful people, after all). Don’t ask me who; I refuse to contemplate it! Instead of moving on, however, they’re caught by Gemma in another crystal ball.

She hunted down the original supplier who made them for Magic Staples, see. “What the fuck, Gemma?” ask multiple people. “So we can say goodbye in our own time,” she says.

“…and it was an incredible tactical advantage for a bit there,” she admits. “Just briefly! Until they’re ready to move on!”

“…and I wanted to see if I could still do it,” she eventually confesses. (It’s all fine, though. Mostly, they all just get that extra chance to say goodbye, then Gemma breaks the ball.)

It turns out that the person who used to bless those crystal balls is the same seer who sold Dimitri those parting puzzle boxes. They’re completely unhelpful, information-wise, but they do advise Dimitri to visit China. Dimitri is still pretty busy fighting omnipresent capitalism in Boston, so he books a flight rather than try to get a job as some sort of sailor again. His plane goes down over the Pacific, but only one passenger is lost…Dimitri, of course.

Nica fights to remain calm. She’d know if he was dead, she’s sure. Somehow. Anyway, it’s Dimitri. Adventures just happen to him. He’ll be fine, and he’ll come home.

She’s right. Dimitri arrives home about a year later having found Amelia Earhart on one of those one-coconut tree islands where time doesn’t really move. (She, too, is Like This.) He brought her home with him. Dimitri and Amelia get married couple years after that.

They try to use Dimitri and Amelia's weird tropiness to bust Ethan's evil necromancy/mind control/cheese robot lab on Coney Island. Surely THAT'S a mystery to reveal to the world! Their attempts at contrivance keep failing, though; eventually they conclude that this sort of thing depends on whatever-it-is being an unsolved mystery to Dimitri and Amelia themselves (until they solve it). And they already know about the evil necromancy/mind control/cheese robot lab.

Fortunately, while Legion did immediately use its massive information-gathering reach and money to purchase as many of those fully functional glass balls as they could, and hired some skilled but unscrupulous psychics to summon ghosts into them, it turns out that it's an incredibly rare ghost who has both the wide-welcoming compassion and clockwork-like mind to function as the massive inter-human connector that Ethan and Legion seek. Leon was, as we all knew, both incredible and unique.

It all comes to a head at last when a young girl's grandmother dies, in one of NYC's many districts of immigrants. The grandmother was special because, among other things, she was strict and precise but always loving, and enough of a witch to own a really good old crystal ball (not one of the half-plastic knockoffs you get these days). The girl is special because, among other things, she, too, has some innate supernatural talent, and she doesn't want to let her grandmother (and sole guardian) go, and also she can talk to animals like the youthful protagonists of the Rescuers movies.

Cheese robots steal the crystal ball containing her grandmother's spirit. Her friends among the secret rodent city underneath NYC reach out to their allies in Boston for aid. The Bostonian rats tip off their trusted humans. Legion is still a massive evil international corporation which may or may not actually be run by humans, but its necromancy/mind control department is broken for good by the power of bildungsroman.

Emily files for divorce.

[alien-girl-21]

Due to popular demand (6 notes in my post) here’s why q!roier is very similar to k4!luzu and why I think q!roier is going to have the same faith as luzu did.

I think the most important trope with both of them is how they try to be good, but the world seems to be against them. Good!luzu was always there to help people, he helped vegetta build his house without any reward, helped people find materials, always gave people food, he was constantly helping even if all he got in return was trolling and evil-doings. Meanwhile, q!roier is also constantly helping people (even if it’s not as notorious than with luzu), he’s constantly exploring with vegetta and helping him in the process, he's always offering food if someone doesn’t have it, hell, even if it was a joke, he did offer to help foolish build his dragon, and what does he get in return? His pets get killed, he ends up not having food and no one giving him food back, he gets shit stolen from him, and, even though it was a joke, vegetta did give him illegal diamond armor and told quackity to ban him. But somehow, even after all of this, both of them persisted being good, luzu never really gave a fuck about being griefed, being accused of stuff, he defended his case and went on with his life, and roier kinda does the same.

They both also attract darkness, in a weird way. K4!luzu was constantly being accused being part of the hermandad oscura (the dark brotherhood), with every member being sure he was part of the brotherhood, or at least being heavily suspicious he was part of it. The hermandad oscura constantly tried to get luzu to join them, they tried to get him to be evil, but he never really followed exactly to a tee. The hermandad oscura tried to get luzu to do steal, and luzu stole, but left a sign saying it was necessary; they tried to get him to plan something evil against k!auron (someone k4!luzu was close to/fond of/had feelings for) and he just told them to make a silly little puzzle to hide his diamonds, but the puzzle could not be deadly whatsoever. And then we have q!roier, who was told by angel!rubius that he had darkness in him, something that was repeated a lot to luzu by the hermandad oscura. He also seems to attract cucurucho a lot, which, even though we don’t know cucurucho’s intentions, no one really trusts them/the federal comission.

Even though the QSMP has been going on for a little over a week, q!roier seems to be going the same way as k4!luzu. he’s just fucking speedrunning the character development. Q!roier has been hurt by someone he is very close with (q!spreen) over something that meant a lot to him (his dog), just like k4!luzu was hurt by someone he was very close with (k!auron) over something that meant a lot to him (the mayor elections). Even though I don’t think this will be the breaking point for q!roier, I feel like it's setting up for a series of events that will snowball and make q!roier someone hateful and spiteful, just like k4!luzu after the elections, becoming evil!luzu. I feel like q!spreen killing firulais can be the equivalent to k4!luzu having to save Manolo (his pet pig) from the hermandad oscura, who had stolen him. Shit is just going to escalate from here. But it seems like q!roier is more cold and calculated with his revenge. Even though he had his couple of minutes where he was genuinely down and sad over losing firulais, he managed to act like nothing happened for the rest of the time he was with q!quackity, but as soon as he left, q!roier started saying he has lost trust in quackity and spreen, and that they hurt him. Which is a bit different to evil!luzu’s method of being loud about his revenge, rebuilding his whole house and the betrayal having a physical effect on him (his eye color changing), though he did preform his revenge in a more discreet manner, trying to make sure to carry it out when he was the only one in the server.

Overall, q!roier’s arc seems to be heading in the same place as k4!luzu’s, and tragedy is probably going to keep striking him until he can’t take it anymore and he will start to take revenge for everything that was done to him, hurting people he cares about in the process.

[swankedofsauce]

Triple Threat - dnd campaign updates (1)

A story of three lonely fellas who no longer wish to be lonely anymore.

Our story begins with our three goobers:

Blooper Inkwell- a water genasi tempest cleric

Orion Estelle- a tabaxi druid

Miles Moonshine- a shadar Kai ranger

(We’re starting at level one)

I’ll try to give you guys like a reasonable amount of updates within each post because this campaign has been going on for almost a year now so. It’s a lot of information and I don’t wanna overwhelm people within ONE post.

Session 1/0:

Our three goobers find ourselves in the Ivory Kingdom which is a sub-Arctic continent, similar to Greenland.

We find ourselves in the small town of Farport which is a port trading town, and isn’t the wealthiest.

Miles got arrested for a month for jaywalking because he inconvienced the prince Zalastar and was locked up with a half orc jail mate and barely got any sleep as his jail mate snored a lot.

After getting out, he and his two buddies went out to go take a quest.

The quest was: merchants from Farport have gone missing when going to the city of Valica, since the two places are partners in that.

We went to go talk to the mayor of Farport, who knew Miles after writing him up a few times for shenanigans (crime) upon explaining who the three were he called us “stupid enough” to do this quest. After some. Interesting banter, we went off to see Samantha Green- who’s husband was a merchant and he went missing upon trying to go to Valica.

We spoke to her and gave her our word we’d bring her husband home, and she asked if we could help her out with a rat problem she was having.

We go out to the barn, and I’m like 90% sure they were dire rats (our dm didn’t say) but they were dog sized rats. And they were all covered in blood and munching on something.

After taming two of them and killing the third who was feral. We cleaned them up, got our pay from Samantha who was horrified. And decided it’d be funny if we gave the rats to the mayor.

He was not happy about that as we walk away and hear “WHAT THE FUCKKKK” being screamed from his home.

We found an inn and that was our first session.

Session 2:

We are all broke and cannot afford a horse and Orion can’t wildshape yet.

The next best thing to carrying a wagon full of trading goods? Use the party tank. (Miles)

The goods had the alert spell on them, and the mayor threatened us.

Anyway- walk to Valica is a two days walk on foot. (Or one and a half, I don’t recall) and most of it was uphill.

On our way there, we heard noises within the trees- as to which, Orion went and hid on the opposite side and Blooper attempted to scare away by using thaumaturgy and yelling “HEY FUCKER”

This did not work.

A half orc came out, and upon bloopers yelling ripped his map in half. Now pissed at us, Blooper and Miles got ready to fight.

Meanwhile since Orion was never spotted- he used charm person, and came out and basically said “hey big guy. Go that way.” And that. Worked.

After that we obtained the torn map, and found there was an X on it in between the mountains we were in.

We’d check that out later.

Continuing our journey we found a Selune temple looking ravaged, there was blood on the trees and ground, arrows, etc. and there were three pairs of footprints going deeper into the woods.

We decided to check that out later as we had a delivery to make.

We all went to sleep in the forest and got up the next day and headed to Valica.

There was an election happening between two mayors: Gilbert Thornwell(?) and Lyre Everrose.

What we gathered was that Gilbert was a gnome who was bigger on community and keeping the people of Valica together and strengthening it, while Lyre was bigger on expansion and capitalism, strengthening bonds of the economy. Wasn’t long before we found the merchants guild.

After some issues with the guards, we eventually got in and met the head of the merchants guild- a half orc named Korg.

Prior the mayor of Farport who’s name is Karaldic Hamelton (he’s an elf) told us that Korg “wasn’t the nicest person”

Upon meeting Korg we all loved him.

We told him the situation in farport and what we saw on the way here with the temple outpost and found out very quickly that Korg was a Selune worshipper as he had a Selune emblem on him and said “this just got personal” he also told us that no one from Farport has been coming here in about a month and whatnot.

Also he hates Farport mayor- as. All of us do. After shit talking Keraldic to Korg he wished us luck on our journey.

We went around the city for a bit to ask around about questions for the missing merchants and one conversation we heard was “yeah I just bought one the other day, they’re great.” We didn’t get much out of those people.

Orion asked someone if they’d seen “a little black cat” but the person he asked thought he meant a literal cat and not a tabaxi. So no.

We went shopping for a little bit then back out it was.

Session 3/4 because I cannot remember the order of these anymore, but I’ll sure as hell try:

We got back to the Selune outpost and followed the tracks which led up this super jagged mountain, and we all rolled extremely well on climbing so we got up fuckin easy.

We all stayed at the base of it as we watched and saw a goblin camp with the merchants we were supposed to save.

There was this wooden wall that was like 20 ft high, and Orion snuck up there and Miles teleported up there.

And Blooper just kinda.

Hung out on the cliff as he watched us.

Orion and Miles made a plan and then high-fived before Orion climbed back down to tell Blooper what was up, Miles was able to climb ontop the wall and sneak around to where the merchants were.

Blooper had cast light on one of his crossbow bolts and shot it up as a distraction and then cast fog cloud within the little wooden wall area so that Miles wouldn’t be caught.

Miles got down but not without busting his shoulder.

All the merchants were very afraid of him at first as he was able to bust out two of the merchants from their wooden cages, and was coming up with a plan to how to get them out.

Trying to make an exit path there was one person who would see him, so he one shotted them dead and then went back to save the third merchant.

Blooper got caught and decided it’d be a great idea to pop out and try to talk his way out of this.

Spoilers: he couldn’t.

The only person who caught him was the bugbear boss who was seemingly in charge of this whole deal.

After bloopers many attempts to talk his way out of the situation- we went into combat.

Blooper tried to zap the guys off (tempest cleric) but ended up going down twice and lost two of his fingers which made the fog cloud drop, Orion came down and hit the place with some earth tremors and infestations. And Miles was just focused on getting the actual fuck out of there with the merchants.

He got caught by a half orc and a few hobgoblins- the half orc was the same from earlier.

The half orc tried throwing his club at Miles and missed- instead hitting the wooden wall enclosure, which made for a nifty little exit.

Miles tore a peace of his clothing and put an arrow in fire before it hit the wall- setting it on fire before grabbing two of the merchants- the third following behind. Made it outside the now burning and partially broken wall.

If I recall correctly- Blooper was unconscious most of the fight, and Orion was fighting for his life.

Not to worry- help was on the way.

Our kolbold monk named Dragon Deeznutz (his player made it to one session and never came back, but we appreciated him in this fight regardless) Dragon beat the shit out of the half orc, Orion and him had known one another and were boyfriends.

Orion was super low on health but ran over to help Dragon out with tag teaming the half orc.

Blooper. Still fighting for his life- but by a miracle was able to survive (I don’t remember how)

Miles beat the shit out of some people and burned two people alive in the fire. Subtle.

After the fight, Orion went over and proposed to Dragon and he said yes.

Everyone was super tired (other than Miles who only lost like 4 HP during this because he put his hand in a fire)

And we all took a long rest and leveled up!

Orion got his circle and chose land, Miles got his fighting style and did Druidic warrior and I don’t remember Wtf Blooper got.

Ok that’s all for now for campaign updates!

I’ll post a second part to this soon (because I have a lot of the sessions written down already)

Here’s part 2:

[smokeybrandcompositions]

Pants on Fire

It’s wild to me that there is an entire percentage of our country, that seems to be completely fine with people not being fact checked. Like, Trump broke a decades long tradition of presidential candidates sitting with Sixty Minutes in October, because he was worried that the news organization would fact check him in real time during the interview. I hear that and I understand that these cats are just going to lie through their teeth. They’ve been doing it since the DNC, since Kamala and Walz basically vibed their way into front running this race. Harris has overtaken Trump in every metric that matters, from defense to immigration, to the economy. Harris has even started doing more interviews, this Sixty Minutes one as part of that effort. She’s showing us who she is, answering questions on policy, dodging others about Israel and more controversial things, doing what a politician does and she’s doing it well. What has Trump been doing? Lying so much that he’s getting fact checked by friendly “news” media like Fox. Laura Ingraham literally called this man out, to his face, in an interview at his rally this past weekend. Imagine being called a liar at an event specifically designed for you to lie in front of a crowd, by someone who is in that mechanism which enables you to lie to the entire country. That’s how egregious this situation has become.

People keep saying that the fact checking is biased, that they’re only doing it to Trump and his crew but, I mean, the man got on television and said, with his full chest, that the immigrants were eating the cats and dogs. During a nationally televised presidential debate! Bro, what are you doing? This was already debunked. The Mayor of that city refuted that story the second it came out. Vance’s team looked into it and were told it was all fabrications. JD posted his little tweet anyway and whole ass racists ran with it. Turns out, the eaten cat was just hiding in the basement for a week or whatever. The lady who reported the “crime” has since apologized to her Haitian neighbors and admitted, once again on live TV, she made a mistake. Trump and his team responded by doubling down. Even though these Haitians are legal and are here under protected status, not only does he (and Vance) refer to them as illegal, he’s promise to deport them back to Haiti if re-elected! That’s bonkers to me! This migrants are here, legally, under the protection of the United States of America. Sending them back to Haiti is practically a death sentence. Most of there are political refugees fleeing a wildly destabilized country and he’s sending them back to their “sh*thole country” because they’re taking the blood of America. Sh*t is absolutely disgusting but, you know, don’t fact check me.

Even more egregious than that festering bigotry, is the fact that Trump and his campaign keep lying about the response to one of the most horrific hurricane seasons on record. Milton is about to eviscerate Florida and this last one, Helene, smashed the Carolinas and parts of Georgia. Those places hit are all very Red areas but the Federal response has been on point. Biden visited as soon as he could and Kamala has been on the ground helping with recovery. Trump is out-and-out lying about how well Biden’s administration has been during this crisis, probably because of how sh*t he was during COVID, and swears they’ve been withholding recovery funds from Right leaning areas. All lies, rebuffed by the Governors and Mayors of those areas which were hit. Trump tried to spin the seven hundred and change FEMA give out for immediate necessities, as the entirety of the relief on hand. You definitely get more than that. Biden has even called for Congress to come back from recess and vote to provide more aid, something the House Majority Leader, Mike Johnson, refuses to do until after the election. They don’t need to because it takes time to calculate the damage, according to Trumps House Puppet. Biden is doing what he can, with what he has, and he’s doing a great job, according to those directly affected by this catastrophe but if you listen Trump, Kamala and the entire Democratic mechanism in the White House, are incompetent fools who are stealing relief funds and giving it to illegal immigrants.

Personal grievance aside, as someone who can be objective when needed, I do not understand how people listen to what Trump says and think it’s reality. Sometimes, sure, there may be gray areas. I can’t think of any but devil’s advocate. Sometimes, you don’t want to think for yourself. Fine, I know people who have form no opinions for themselves and are just told what to think by the strongest male energy in the room. But when Trump says sh*t like immigrants are poisoning the blood of America, you have to pause for the cause. Immigration is the strength of America. We’re the melting pot, man. Our diversity is what makes us unique. Literally the US would be nothing  without immigrants. Unless you’re a Native, you’re an immigrant. As far as the country becoming an economic powerhouse, stolen Africans were forcefully immigrated to make that happen. The US is nothing without immigrants and that’s an inalienable fact. Not only is that statement about poison a lie, but it is, at best, xenophobic and at worst, racist, but for sure smacks of Hitler in the Forties, regardless. If you can here that, accept it as gospel, and still support a man who so very obviously NEEDS to be fact checked every second of his life, then you’re a lost cause. It’s not the fact checking you take umbrage with. It’s the questioning of your perceived strong man. A strong man who whines about being called out for lying. Like a child.

[smokeybrand]

Pants on Fire

It’s wild to me that there is an entire percentage of our country, that seems to be completely fine with people not being fact checked. Like, Trump broke a decades long tradition of presidential candidates sitting with Sixty Minutes in October, because he was worried that the news organization would fact check him in real time during the interview. I hear that and I understand that these cats are just going to lie through their teeth. They’ve been doing it since the DNC, since Kamala and Walz basically vibed their way into front running this race. Harris has overtaken Trump in every metric that matters, from defense to immigration, to the economy. Harris has even started doing more interviews, this Sixty Minutes one as part of that effort. She’s showing us who she is, answering questions on policy, dodging others about Israel and more controversial things, doing what a politician does and she’s doing it well. What has Trump been doing? Lying so much that he’s getting fact checked by friendly “news” media like Fox. Laura Ingraham literally called this man out, to his face, in an interview at his rally this past weekend. Imagine being called a liar at an event specifically designed for you to lie in front of a crowd, by someone who is in that mechanism which enables you to lie to the entire country. That’s how egregious this situation has become.

People keep saying that the fact checking is biased, that they’re only doing it to Trump and his crew but, I mean, the man got on television and said, with his full chest, that the immigrants were eating the cats and dogs. During a nationally televised presidential debate! Bro, what are you doing? This was already debunked. The Mayor of that city refuted that story the second it came out. Vance’s team looked into it and were told it was all fabrications. JD posted his little tweet anyway and whole ass racists ran with it. Turns out, the eaten cat was just hiding in the basement for a week or whatever. The lady who reported the “crime” has since apologized to her Haitian neighbors and admitted, once again on live TV, she made a mistake. Trump and his team responded by doubling down. Even though these Haitians are legal and are here under protected status, not only does he (and Vance) refer to them as illegal, he’s promise to deport them back to Haiti if re-elected! That’s bonkers to me! This migrants are here, legally, under the protection of the United States of America. Sending them back to Haiti is practically a death sentence. Most of there are political refugees fleeing a wildly destabilized country and he’s sending them back to their “sh*thole country” because they’re taking the blood of America. Sh*t is absolutely disgusting but, you know, don’t fact check me.

Even more egregious than that festering bigotry, is the fact that Trump and his campaign keep lying about the response to one of the most horrific hurricane seasons on record. Milton is about to eviscerate Florida and this last one, Helene, smashed the Carolinas and parts of Georgia. Those places hit are all very Red areas but the Federal response has been on point. Biden visited as soon as he could and Kamala has been on the ground helping with recovery. Trump is out-and-out lying about how well Biden’s administration has been during this crisis, probably because of how sh*t he was during COVID, and swears they’ve been withholding recovery funds from Right leaning areas. All lies, rebuffed by the Governors and Mayors of those areas which were hit. Trump tried to spin the seven hundred and change FEMA give out for immediate necessities, as the entirety of the relief on hand. You definitely get more than that. Biden has even called for Congress to come back from recess and vote to provide more aid, something the House Majority Leader, Mike Johnson, refuses to do until after the election. They don’t need to because it takes time to calculate the damage, according to Trumps House Puppet. Biden is doing what he can, with what he has, and he’s doing a great job, according to those directly affected by this catastrophe but if you listen Trump, Kamala and the entire Democratic mechanism in the White House, are incompetent fools who are stealing relief funds and giving it to illegal immigrants.

Personal grievance aside, as someone who can be objective when needed, I do not understand how people listen to what Trump says and think it’s reality. Sometimes, sure, there may be gray areas. I can’t think of any but devil’s advocate. Sometimes, you don’t want to think for yourself. Fine, I know people who have form no opinions for themselves and are just told what to think by the strongest male energy in the room. But when Trump says sh*t like immigrants are poisoning the blood of America, you have to pause for the cause. Immigration is the strength of America. We’re the melting pot, man. Our diversity is what makes us unique. Literally the US would be nothing  without immigrants. Unless you’re a Native, you’re an immigrant. As far as the country becoming an economic powerhouse, stolen Africans were forcefully immigrated to make that happen. The US is nothing without immigrants and that’s an inalienable fact. Not only is that statement about poison a lie, but it is, at best, xenophobic and at worst, racist, but for sure smacks of Hitler in the Forties, regardless. If you can here that, accept it as gospel, and still support a man who so very obviously NEEDS to be fact checked every second of his life, then you’re a lost cause. It’s not the fact checking you take umbrage with. It’s the questioning of your perceived strong man. A strong man who whines about being called out for lying. Like a child.